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When I purchased Giddings Lane, included in the price was a piano in my shed. Now, before you get all excited dream of hearing me tickle the ivories, please note these two things. 1, you do NOT want to hear me play the piano. My one year of lessons didn't really "take." 2, this piano was in BAD shape. It had been home to several cats (they left poo evidence,) significant water damage (the metal back is majorly rusted,) and is completely beyond restoring. (I did try several times to find a new home for the beast, but no one took me up on my offer.) sThat means that this piano is headed to the dump. Now, if you recall, I mentioned that the piano was in the shed in the backyard, not anywhere near a stable place to load a trailer with a 600+ pound piano. Notice the distance from the shed, whose door faces the backyard and the front of the carport.
So, when my sweet cousin Emily was down to see my niece Vaeh, she was cajoled/suckered into helping move the piano. You know how it goes, come play with the cute baby and do some massive physical labor. No big deal! Ha! We'll see if I can every convince her to come back...Using an intricate system of walking 2 by 12's, dollies and tow straps, Marc, Sara and poor Emily rolled the piano to its new home in my carport. (didn't I mention it was a little crowded in there??) 
After strapping the piano to the porch braces, there it sat for almost a month. Hey, others have pretty flowers and cute gnomes in their yard. Me? I have a giant poo-infested piano. (I know you're super jealous.)
Last weekend, in an effort to clean up my carport, I started to dismantle the giant monstronsity. In case you are curious, Bradford pianos are held together with 1,000 plus flathead screws and glue. All of the wood pieces instead of being screwed or nailed are just glued together. I did salvage the wood from the pieces I pulled off. (I was told the wood was walnut, which makes even a diehard paint fan like me cringe when I see the current finish. The black finished piano was covered in nasty orange paint and then antiqued.)With careful loosening and re-tightening of the tow straps, I unscrewed and removed the key covers and the face of the piano. To be completely honest, a piano is actually pretty cool underneath all of the wood. 
After a couple of hours of un-engineering a piano, I now have this beauty sitting out front. Most of the keys are sitting out for the trashman, along with a couple of other unsalvageable parts. Current plans are to recycle the metal wall along the back somewhere, somehow. Otherwise, if anyone has any suggestions or wants a piece of my piano, leave me a comment or better yet, come pick up a part!
So, one of the bad/good things about a blog is that the entire (all 20+ of y'all!) world gets to see all of your dirty laundry. While I do write the blog and I get to decide what goes on it, it is somewhat cathartic to air my dirty laundry and breathe a bit. During my crazy weeks, I have a habit of dropping things where they fall when I come into the house. Most nights I get home about an hour or so before bed and then leave again in the early morning. Rarely do I have time, okay, really energy to pick up. So, when the weekend comes, I go around and try and pick up everything and put it back where it goes. 
My project this weekend was cleaning up not the inside of my house, but the carport instead. With dumpster diving and salvaging lumber, house parts, and extra saw horses, my carport was appearing very similar to an ad for a storage company. There was barely enough room for my car and opening doors was very scary for fear of scratching them or sending something flooding down.
So, I backed the car out and after putting on some heavy duty gloves, I started the seemingly impossible task of cleaning up and clearing away. I moved a set of three saw horses over and restacked the mess of lumber.
Underneath the lumber hodge-podge I discovered the wooden pallet that held my back door when it was shipped. If you look carefully in my "after," you'll realize I gave up on pulling this apart and instead leaned it up on the lumber stack. (Cut me some slack, it was put together with some hurricane nails. yuck!!) On top of the pallet was 2 bags of Quickcrete. One of them had split open over time, which made for some very interesting dust. Ugh! (don't worry, my house wasn't burning. that "smoke" on Sunday afternoon was a misdirected blower on the dust. I rapidly switched to shop-vac after that.) Along with all of the hefting and hauling, I pulled all of the nails and staples out of the wood.
Approximately 4 hours later, I finally had what you see below. Not only do I have room for my car now, but it's safe to open the doors! It was so worth the effort and makes me happy every time I pull into it.
With the Super Bowl over, we have a new line-up. This was the scene in my carport not too long ago.
These are the yet another grouping in the endless parade of doors in this house. In the interior of the house alone, we have 12 doors that have had to be refinished. (Nope, that's not including the various cabinet doors.)
If you don't recall, check out this to see exactly what is involved in getting the doors into hanging shape. After hours of sanding, de-gooking and painting, we finally have closet doors hanging up in the last two rooms of the house. Yes!!! This means that I can join the hoards of others who stuff closets full and then shut the doors to hide it. Oh wait, no knobs on the doors means I probably shouldn't shut them yet... Hmmmm
