The big one

I wasn't going to post this until the piano refinishing was complete, but folks, let's face it... it's going to be a while! It's coming along, but it just takes a long time. I'm not complaining, sorry if it seemed like I was, I'm just stating the facts. However, it is coming along nicely!

I apparently didn't take a before picture of the piano with my camera, all I had was one from my phone. I took this picture and others of our old apartment, as you can see I forgot to take before shots with the pictures any everything on the walls and on top of the piano before I boxed it all up, so it's kind of bare.
First we removed the top piece (which wasn't difficult seeing as it hasn't been attached to the hinges since who knows when... they weren't attached when we bought it). We decided to see if we would actually like what it looks like painted, so we used this piece since it was the easiest.

I had to strip off the old stain and clear coats. Then we sanded it... a lot. Then we painted it black. I thought I'd like the distressed edges look, but it turns out I liked it better just solid black (although the distressed look still looks good when I think about it in my head, but sometimes imagination is better than it really is.. lol).

We sanded in between each coat

Then we put on a few coats of the clear coat (sanding in between each coat). We used a matte finish clear coat and I really really like the way it looks!

After we decided we liked what it looked like, we moved on to another piece. This is the music stand section of the piano. This is the stripping phase.

Here is what the piano looks like without those pieces (the top and the music stand part)

Here it is with both parts finished (well, mostly, I need to touch up a few parts).

And obviously we've moved onto the foot board (basically I'm making up terms for the sections... but you know what I'm talking about) part.

After I stripped it and sanded it, the varnish was coming off in some places so it needed a little gluing. This little set up worked like a champ. We had to do it a couple of times and currently the glue is drying on another section. After the glue dries we'll have to put some puddy in some places and do a bit more sanding (due to the puddy and because a bird "left it's mark" on my piano!)...