I have always – ALWAYS – wished I had a piano in my own place. My parents volunteered at our church and when they took me with them on random evenings I’d sneak into the sanctuary and play with the beautiful grand piano. I wrote little songs and sang, and I just loved being alone in the dark, where I was used to seeing the place full and illuminated. There was a Casio keyboard in our house as a kid in the 90s but I didn’t have training and let’s be honest, it sounded bad! In college I could access pianos any hour of the day in the practice rooms, and though unsupervised, all that practice helped my skills go from yikes to just meh. I had a decent keyboard after college until the pandemic when I moved into a rental house that had an upright piano already in it. It was life-changing to have that 24 hours a day, and think about it as a fixture in my place rather than an ugly thing I didn’t like to keep set up. I immediately had it tuned – for the first time in 8 years, by the look of the service log taped inside. I wrote some good songs on it, including one for Frank for our 10th wedding anniversary. We didn’t live in that house forever, but it signed my fate as a future piano owner. 

There are a lot of pianos on FB marketplace but not a lot of pianos with a delivery option! Absolutely no type of piano is fitting into my Subaru! But Frank found Kitsap Reuse (https://kitsapreuse.com/),  a place one town over on Bainbridge Island that had several pianos we could sit and try before buying, and delivery options. It was a complete relief to just go in, try the pianos in person, know I’m getting the best-sounding one, and then have it brought into my house on a date of my choosing. Chef kiss. I also got it tuned and professionally worked on by True Sound Piano Service (https://www.truesoundpianos.com/) – James is an awesome guy and great technician, and I’m happy to have a piano guy to call now! Thanks James! 

So please meet our newest addition to the family of musical instruments: the Baldwin Monarch Upright Piano! And now to find myself a badly-needed piano teacher…