The Painted Piano Transformation

 

Today's Blog post is written by a Customer who tackled her project with amazing results!  At times I know she was frustrated but she managed to trudged through it.  I think it made an amazing difference! I appreciate Alison sharing her experience and admire her for tackling such a big project from the get GO!

 

The Painted Piano Project

Alison Demong

 

 

It was time to turn our neglected playroom into a more family-friendly room, and I was excited to start all over with a new color scheme and furniture.   The only problem: What to do with the old, ugly piano that we picked up for free years ago, that would be an eyesore in the new room.  My designer friend Wendy Callahan suggested:  Paint it!  Seemed like a cool idea, and I’ve painted a few pieces of throw away furniture before with decent results, but I’m no artist and I knew it would be a big undertaking…

 

I googled painted pianos and came up with some VERY cool results that were inspiring.  The ones I liked best were high-gloss, crazy bright colors, total statement in a room.  Awesome.  But then came the YouTube videos of people painstakingly taking apart the piano bit by bit, fully sanding in their huge warehouse garages and applying layer after layer of latex paint with lots of sanding in between.  Ummm…. no way.  Not happening. And now I’m discouraged.   About this time a friend from Scituate recommended that I talk to Tami at Simply Vintage who uses and sells Chalk/Clay Paint - a perfect product for painting old furniture.  No priming, no sanding…. ?? Really?!  Sounded too good to be true.

 

I met with Tami and learned that chalk paint is very versatile and easy to work with, but it might  be hard to get that high-gloss uniform look that I really wanted.  Was it worth trying, since anything would be an improvement over what I had?!  YES!  I let go of the dream of the high-gloss standout in favor of a muted color that would blend in the room and make the piano sort of ‘disappear’. 

 

 

I started with the bench since that seemed manageable.  With Tami’s help I chose "Smoke Signal"  and it is a beautiful grey color.  The first coat of chalk paint goes on very deceptively as it looks all streaky and like its not really covering, and then it dries and looks solid but lighter.    After the second coat I felt satisfied that it covered well.  The trouble is you can’t really tell the true color of the paint until you seal it, as it will darken up.  I knew there were several options for sealer, most popular is a wax, but I went for the easiest route:  Polycrylic. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But unfortunately, when the polycrylic dried, there seemed to be a brownish tinge to the paint color in some places which baffled me.  It wasn’t horrible, it looked a little ‘antiqued’, but it worried me.  I brought the bench to Tami who thought that the wood had bled through the chalk paint and was pulled up through by the polycrylic.  Her suggestion was to apply a coat of Shellac to the piano first to seal it and prevent bleeding.  So much for no-priming but I figured I had to do it since I was worried about the unpredictability if I didn’t.

 

And so began the process of me scrubbing down the piano with a cleaner (I actually used Fantastic with bleach which was probably not an awesome choice because it gave me a headache, but I had used Trader Joe’s “Next to Godliness” on the bench and I don’t think it got it clean enough) and then applying a coat of shellac.  Shellac went on quickly and easily  - phew.

 

Next I worked on the side of the piano that no one would see because I wanted to play around with coats of paint and sealers.  In these photos, the piano is in my office next to the living room because I had wallpaper going up and needed to get it out of there for a while.  I painted two coats of chalk paint, and then sealed the top portion with polycrylic.  It looked good but I wanted to try the wax that most people use with Chalk/Clay Paint.  Tami gave me a sample of that, and also hemp oil.  In this one photo the right hand side I used the wax and then I used the hemp oil on the skinny bottom section and that one weird square on the left (why the square!??  I don’t know! I  guess I was worried the bottom section wasn’t big enough to give me a good read on the oil!)  

 

 

My opinion was that the wax was REALLY hard to work with - very streaky, I didn’t know how much was enough or what I was doing.  It did mellow out when it dried, but I knew it was not for me.  The hemp oil was crazy! I kind of liked the dark color but I was nervous about how it would dry over time - would it continue to lighten up? Who knew. I am not Ok with unpredictability.  I had my answer:  Poly was the way to go for me.

 

 

Now time to tackle the rest of the piano.  I moved her back into her spot in the new wall papered room to get me motivated to FINISH the job.  And yes, the jury is still out on whether I was either totally brave or incredibly stupid to tackle the job right in the new room with new wallpaper inches away!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The front/bottom panel popped right off which was so lucky and made my life so much easier as I was able to lay it flat and paint it on the floor.  Then I just did my two coats all over the piano and applied the poly.  These photos are taken after the second coat, before it was completely dry.   The most annoying part was behind the keys - I used a kid’s watercolor brush which was not a great tool but I was too lazy and cheap to buy the right thing.   My first go at it was rushed and jagged, but another day I went back over it slowly and evened it out.  Don’t look too closely - it ain’t perfect that’s for sure.   Also, I have to tell you that there is STILL some brownish tinge to the color after the poly is applied… why?!  I did the shellac! I think that if you are looking for a very solid color when painting over dark wood, you may have to go with three coats.  It may *look* covered when the 2nd coat is dry, but the poly really brings out the imperfections in your paint job and you can see where coverage wasn’t perfect. 

 

Overall I feel that chalk/clay paint was the right way to go for me as it did not take a ton of time, and the result is really nice - even if it’s not the high-gloss result I originally imagined.  I love it!  If you have an old ugly piano looking for a facelift:   go for it!   If I can do it - so can you!

 

 

Gorgeous! I love the finished piece! and your room is Stunning!! So Happy to be a part of this Project! Thank you for sharing!!