A client commissioned this project, and the main request was to make the piano functional again. Lamentably, the piano couldn’t be played, so we had to find a different purpose for it in order to keep admiring the beauty of this instrument. They knew they wanted a bookshelf, but no more.

 

From the outset of this project, our main goal was to keep and reuse as much of the piano as possible.

 

The deconstruction was a very interesting process. Having no experience with pianos or in how to take one apart, much research was needed.  The folks at Allison Pianos were great help. The project couldn’t have been finished without them!

 

Caution had to be taken when disassembling the piano. For example, the cast iron plate, called the harp, is extremely heavy and handles around 15 to 20 tons of tension from the 200ish strings! 

 

Once the whole inner structure and parts (plate, strings, beams, pins, screws and more screws), were removed, the piano was ready to be repurposed.

 

The design is purposely clean and simple, and blends with existing parts of the piano. The shelves are curved, mirroring the sound shape of the instrument.  Lastly, every effort was made to reuse piano parts for this piece. The structural beams were used to make new base of the piano. Even the screws were reused from the original piano!

 

Imagine these shelves full of records!!