My Painted Piano With Subway Art Bench

It all started when my grandpa gave us Christmas money shortly after we were married with the instructions that it was to be used for a piano.  I had taken years of lessons and I guess he didn't want to see that go to waste.  Well uhhh.... possibly too late for that! : /

And now we know who to thank for my whopping height of 4'10"!!
Thanks, Grandpa.  Good things are supposed to come in small packages, so we'll just hold to that.

So I've toyed for a few years with painting the piano, but several people really frowned on the idea when I brought it up.  Not that that's ever stopped me before.  But then it was just so tempting for my little boys to start peeling and picking at the loose veneer on the bench and soon you couldn't sit on it without getting a sliver where the sun don't shine.

So I gave Tobin the job of removing the rest of the veneer.  It was some stubborn stuff, and even I couldn't get it all without doing some big time gouging.  

My quick-fix was to recover a big ole' piano bench cushion, but I never did finish that project...

 as you can see:

Yes that's a sriped sweater with flannel checked pants.
 Don't judge my amazing fashion statements.

In January, my parents were down in Texas doing some missionary work.  She called me just hours after I told her I wanted to paint my piano a deep muddy turquoise and said she was in a flea market and found a mistint of paint for super cheap in what she was pretty sure the exact color I described.  
Well whaddya know! 

 Then, just a few days ago, my super delightful friend Sarah came to visit with her darling little Jailyn.  We had about an hour before she had to go pick her other daughter up from school when she says "Hey, got any projects I could help you on?"  Well shucks, I've got some paint sitting upstairs just waiting to go on the piano... and in typical Sarah fashion, she jumps up and says "let's do it!"  

Having three little ones may have been a bit of a mistake,
 but actually paint comes off of laminate flooring very easily.  Even after it's dry.

So now I can't put off the dratted piano bench any longer.

I ran a cloth diaper under hot water and wrung it out well.
Then I laid it over top the stubborn veneer and ironed it on high heat.  

Check it!  It came off like a charm.  Woot woot!!!!

 So next on the agenda was to paint the top of the bench in a herringbone pattern.  Wow.  That looked like it might actually take some skill.  I ain't got time for skill.  Let's stencil some typography!  Musical words are fun.  I starting stenciling them as they came to my mind.

These are all the letter stencils I used.
  Four different sizes, all bought at Wal Mart, I believe.

If you can find the word I accidentally put on there twice, 
you win the prize! ;)

Of course I had to take some sand paper to the edges for a little distressing.  My hubby thinks pretty soon every piece of furniture is going to be "shabby chic" in our house.  He might be right...

This little label was a slight concern, I didn't want to paint over it of course, and it looked really ridiculous when I just taped it off.  I dug through my stencils and found this little border from a "thank you" stencil.  I love how it turned out!!

Now, if only I could play as nice as the piano looks!

So sorry, Dad, for all that money you spent on those lessons!  

I know you've shed a few tears over that.... haha.

Thanks for the beautiful piano, Grandpa

 (twelve years later!!).

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