Of Lamp Shades & Other Finds

“One man’s trash is another man’s treasure” is a cliché.  Most of us are familiar with.  Yesterday, as I got lost looking for a patient’s home, I saw something interesting in a trailer by the roadside.  After a closer look, I realized it was an old upright piano lying on its side, more or less intact.

After I completed my patient visit, I stopped back by the roadside piano and walked around it.  Once upon a time, it had been a real beauty.  Made of oak with real ivory keys now stained by age lay beached in the trailer like the carcass on animal left behind because it no longer had any value, it was at a tipping point in its lifecycle.  As I walked around, I became more and more intrigued.

There’s a sarcastic joke in my family about how my mother couldn’t throw anything away.  No matter what the item was, she would find some way to repurpose it.  This went all the way back to the originating punchline when some long forgotten item was headed for the dump and my mom lamented, “Oh, don’t throw that away.  We can make a lampshade out of it!”  Now, no matter what useless item is headed for the trash one member or another of the family will joke, “oh, don’t throw that away, we can make a lampshade out of it!”  This line has been applied to an old ironing board cover, a useless piece of garden hose and even construction materials like chicken wire or rebar.

As I walked around the once beautiful musical instrument, I smiled to myself and thought, “Oh, I hope they’re not going to throw that away, I could make a lampshade out of it!”  And, laughed to myself as I walked up the sidewalk to knock and the door of the house the trailer and its content seem to belong to.

It turned out, the piano belonged to Paul, who had founded on K SL yard sale listings, had picked it up for free.  Unfortunately, as he was carting it home in the trailer, it hit a bump catapulted out of the trailer and made it home in fairly useless condition.  Paul said he was required, by the city to remove it from in front of his house, because it was an eyesore.  He said I could have it, or he was going to cut it up with a chainsaw into small enough pieces to fit into a garbage can for city disposal.

Now, the part of my brain that I inherited from my mother that continues to make lampshades, was churning away with possibilities; if all I did was cannibalize the beautifully turned, ornate legs from the piece, it would be worth it.  My commute home is usually a mindless 40 minutes, but yesterday the drive was different.  I didn’t harbor any illusions that the piano would ever play again, or that I even had room for it in my apartment.  But, what did pop into my mind was the fact that for the last eight months I had been looking for a bookcase or a bakers rack or some sort of plant stand to fill the ugly cement vacancy at the bottom of my staircase, which leads into the mother-in-law apartment where I live.

The more I thought about it, the more excited I became.  The area at the foot of my stairs is quite sheltered from the weather, only occasionally touched by rain or snow.  The wood on the piano was a gorgeous honey colored walnut, dense and hardy.  The idea was to enchanting not to pursue.

I started plotting about the help I would need.  The piano had to be disassembled enough to transport.  Paul said he would dispose of the heavy parts like the sounding board wires and metal innards.  It was a specialized enough project, but I have amazing resources. 

My landlord’s son, William, just finished building a camp trailer from scratch.  He and his dad would have been good candidates.  Then, there were the Joneses, Scott had put my dining room table together and helped with dismantling and then reassembling the components to my home office.  It was sort of like shuffling through a mental Rolodex, looking for the perfect fit for the complicated project.

Up popped the card for my friend Dave, I had performed his marriage some time ago.  He and his wife had taken on huge remodeling projects in their new home, complete with cabinets, handmade by Dave.

I gave him a phone call, and was relieved to find him as interested in what was possible as I was.  Dave is one of those unusual individuals who has the ability to think creatively and pragmatically.  As screwy as my ideas sounded, even to myself, Dave was able to grasp the concept and agreed to take a look at the piano carcass on the trailer.

As I write, this project is nothing more than a wild haired dream.  But, that doesn’t stop me.  I’ve had too many successful results which just fueled my determination once more.  I have vintage kimonos hanging in my windows instead of drapes, a wrought iron vanity stool topped by an ornate mirror for my coffee table in my library.  And, literally, a lampshade my daughter made by cutting apart silk flowers and glowing the petals to the original base.  Apparently, I inherited the talent from my mother, and passed it on to my daughter.

Sometimes, these creative brainstorms don’t work out.  But, because the investment is so small it’s not a big deal.  And when it does work out, the satisfaction is so spectacular that it feeds the process, and even though we joke about it, we keep repurposing other people’s trash to make our own treasures.