THAT IS AMAZING. wow.

Huh? I appreciate the idea but WTF.

ha, yes!!

The screen seems a little high. Might not be ergonomically correct. But looks cool!

I was afraid to see the after and it's a little sad to see that beautiful middle panel gone, but this is really creative and well done.

Fun! I'm happy to see some Steampunk make it to AT.

I like the idea of this, but the finished product leaves me cold. Especially the LED lighting.

Also, does AT have copy editors?

" . . . where once sheet music would be placed upon."

That's . . . awkward at best.

"exemplary example" of creative use indeed! I couldn't have said it better myself. Really cool!

woof

Not for me but a great idea!

It's such an inspired idea, but I am an antique lover. I think the piano was gorgeous before, but I suppose if you aren't going to use it for it's designed purpose recreate it.

How is this bad taste? The piano was unusable and unsalvagable. Isn't it better to repurpose something instead of throwing it out?

It's kinda cool! I just don't like the lights and I would've played up the steampunk vibe a little more. I'm so jealous of this craigslist find. The only thing I ever find is pressboard walmart crap.

Weird, but kinda cool.

Doesn't "unusable and unsalvagable" imply that you should throw it out?

Questions of taste aside, the placement of the screen is guaranteed to cause serious neck and eye trouble, if used with any frequency.
I'm happy with my little, put away iPad.

@NANUSHKA: that's a good point (ergonomics). But without knowing the height/eye level of the user (Stephen), it's hard to determine whether the placement is less than ideal.

@ROBERTO.FODDAI Hello! So the piano is black/white and the lighting is blue. The LEDs are pretty intense and the camera can't translate their color accurately in relation to the surroundings.

@S.R.K. Don't worry, we still have all the pieces ;)

@NANUSHKA I thought that too at first but after a bit it's quite comfortable. The chair height is low in the pictures.

Happy to answer any questions here. :)

very creative but I honestly don't see it as being very useful. may spark someone's imagination.

I liked the before, I was sad it wasn't useful as a piano but still excited for the after . . . then I clicked through.

All the after is missing is spinnaz.

Radical! The Keep Calm print would drive me crazy, though. Needs a bigger frame :)

What a neat idea! I love that they repurposed it but the beautiful panels are diminished by all that tackiness.

As a pianist my first reaction was "ACK!!", but this is pretty cool (college dorm up-lighting notwithstanding). Black > white pianos 24/7/365. Good luck moving your sweet 700lb desk though, that's an old upright grand apartment piano. Probably pushing 6'.

I don't know what to say . . . the before was so extraordinary.

My initial reaction was that the purple lighting makes it look very tacky, but then I saw the "keep calm" frame next to it... so I calmed down as instructed and I think it would work in a victorian-inspired, much darker setting. Perhaps with an intricate wallpaper on the wall, in a room with some shades of purple elsewhere and some other ornate furniture, wrought iron chandeliers etc. In this lighter, minimalistic setting, it looks very out of place.

I'm always so amazed at how people can come up with such creative ideas for repurposing old items. I would never have thought of this in a million years!

@Stephen_Apple : I'm going to go out on a limb and assert that you intentionally 'misframed' the Keep Calm print to mess with all of us Type-A people, no? Mean joke. :P

@goog, I was about to say they said it was gutted so it shouldn't be that bad, but on further inspection, it looks like they actually left the harp (huge hunk of cast iron) in there. Yeah, good luck moving it.

My first thought was "cool...but why didn't they finish the room?" and my husbands was "bet they also have lights under their car..."
to each their own!

@CRAZYLADY Haha, nice. Absolutely. ;) Amber has an entire wall of framed black and white photos all intentionally slightly misaligned. Every now and then after we have company over we notice someone couldn't stand it and tried to align them for us.

@GOOG , @KMK355 Entirely on track here. The piano is 4.5' tall and 350lbs+ It's big and not fun to move. Although there is something to be said about the quality of construction. It's nice working at the desk on a daily basis. As far a the lighting, although it comes across pretty vibrant in the photos it's relatively subtle in person. I have a remote which adjusts the color (RGB mixing) and brightness. There's also an off button which makes it all go away. Anyone that thinks it's tacky is more than welcome to come over to say hello and take a look for themselves. ;)

I quite like it, but I think the monitor would be too high for me as I am very short. My grandfather made a desk out of parts of an old piano and an old organ years and years ago and it's beautiful.

I think it's awful.

It's not really my style, but it's still a totally cool, creative idea. It's certainly something I'd have never thought of! And there are all sorts of piano styles out there with so much potential, it could be tailored to different people with different tastes. Even if it's not your taste, you have to admit, it's a neat idea.

Awesome! I love the juxtaposition of old and new, the original lines of the piece look great in the black and the lighting adds great effect!

This is a very cool idea and I applaud the creativity, but "leaves me cold" was a good way to describe how I feel about the end result.

Brilliant repurpose

So, someone found an unique use for an already-gutted, already painted-over-the-wood antique piano, and people think it is "ruined?" Really? What piece of crap furniture does a before/after makeover have to start with to satisfy AT readers that the before was in fact, "not ruined?"

While it does look kind of cool, that monitor would be way too high unless you're an incredibly tall person.

Keep Calm and Keep your Hands off that Piano.

After reading this article from The Consumerist only days ago http://consumerist.com/2012/07/pianos-doomed-to-junkyards-as-cost-to-repair-them-is-too-high-for-many-music-lovers.html it's refreshing to see that someone has found a way to give an old piano a new purpose.

Well done, it looks great.

This would have made a hilarious music/entertainment centre too, kind of like a player piano only different, but it makes a great desk. I might have done it differently but I can see why they did what they did.

Bravo!

Personally, I see lots of pianos for free on craigslist. Whoever wants it will have to move it themselves, and then if they want to use it they'd have to retune it or whatever, which is not cheap. (The institutions one might like to donate such a thing to probably can't afford the tuning and maintenance, either.) There's no shortage of pianos, so even if this were a theoretically salvageable, it's not like it was ever going to happen/it couldn't happen to another piano.

On preview, probably what @katgurl85 said.

@Nanushka @TheDanMan

... isn't the screen at pretty much the height the sheet music would have been, though?

Stephen, I think you have wonderful vision, wasn't sure I liked the LED lighting till you said there was a brightness control :)
Only thing I would change is I would take that wonderful panel you removed to place the monitor in and I would place in below in the panel by cutting a place for it and add your bass speaker there. Maybe you can re-purpose the top you removed over the keys for a bench seat? It would be very cool with the ivory keys inlaid into the bench some how? I think the monitor height will be fine you just need a higher seat.
I love how you left some of the guts for the backdrop of your desk area.
Great job!
Ani