Decor Challenges: Styling a Piano

I recently was perusing the interwebs and after following a link to a lovely blog called Little Black Door, I came across a post discussing a challenge - how to incorporate a rather large musical instrument into one's decor.  (I absolutely loved reading the story about how Elizabeth's grandmother saved money to buy the piano!)   How fabulous it is to have a family heirloom, and I'm such a music lover that any instrument will be welcome in my house.

Mr. Handyverger and I are lucky enough to own quite a few guitars, a few doumbeks and now, thanks to his parents, a piano.  They, too, were downsizing and moving far, far away (*sniff*), and didn't want to transport it - understandably!  So a piano came to live with us, much to our delight.   When it arrived, the first challenge was finding a home for it.   It came to live in our dining room, which makes our dining room a wee bit crowded, but we think it's worth it.  To accommodate it, we removed the middle leaf from our dining room table, and downsized to four chairs around it.  We can always add more for company!  (And we used the two extra chairs to create a little seating area on the hall that leads away from the dining room.  The cats are particularly enjoying it.)

Yes, the fabric on the chairs is a little stained.  

They'll be reupholstered someday.  Any good suggestions on 

removing stains from velvet?

Once we found a home for the piano, we were faced with the challenge of making it pretty.  I happen to think pianos are inherently pretty, so that was a good start!  One of the first things I did was to recover the plain, black leather of the piano bench with a vibrant print (and add a little extra cushioning for the tuckus).

I knew I'd find a great place to use this fabric!  

After that was done, I stepped back and took a good look at the piano.  Hm, nice horizontal surfaces, I thought to myself - and then I realized that a piano didn't need to be any harder to style than a fireplace mantel - so that's what I did!

BTW, got the new camera today.  So far, I love it, but boy do 

I have a lot to figure out about taking good pictures!  

Bear with me, please!

I'm excited to decorate the piano for fall - can't you just see it with cute little pumpkins along the top, maybe with my ratues tucked in there, and fall leaf garlands?  I'll definitely keep the sparkly black candles!

What unexpected decor challenges have you had to deal with?  I'd love to hear your stories, and I'd love to hear additional suggestions on making musical instruments a part of a home's style.

Cheers!
Mrs. H.

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