Friday, 13 January 2012

A new life for a piano.

I paid a visit to my brother who is working restoring a grand piano for Dartington Hall.

He is a true master craftsman who can totally transform both the case and the sound of these beautiful instruments.


This piano was completely covered in black paint. He has taken the whole action out and stripped back the wood to reveal this glorious veneer.


The metalwork get a new layer of gold paint and each string is painstakingly replaced.


This is the felt being woven through to stop any unwanted sound.

I'm going to follow the progress of this piano and I'll be showing you more in later posts.

The workshop is part of the beautiful Dartington Estate.

It is my favourite place for winter walks.

As I went into the garden there was the beautiful scent of Myrtle, famous for being part of Queen Victorias wedding bouquet and which has also been part if every Royal brides wedding flowers ever since.



 Here's some more of the flowers that were out today...

                                                Snowdrops....


                                              Primroses.............







Camellias.....


.......with huge buds


and over head with the winter sunshine sparkling through.


then my favourite winter flower, Witch hazel.

A really lovely day out.

Hope you enjoy your winter walks.

xox Angela.

1 comment:

Tammy@T's Daily Treasures said...

Wow! That's a lot of work to take a piano apart and restore it. But what a gorgeous setting in which to do it. Looks like it was a beautiful day. Witch hazel? I didn't know it was actually a plant. Learn something new every day. Best wishes to you, Tammy