In thinking about my upcoming move from Sunnyvale to San Francisco, I've been trying to decide which furniture to keep -- the new place is much smaller -- and how to get the rest to San Francisco, coordinating move-out, move-in, and maybe temporary storage in between.
But the real estate agent who's selling my old place made a brilliant suggestion: sell the old place with its furniture. While I really like that furniture, it was all chosen specifically for that house, and I'm not that attached to it.
Except for the piano.
I have a grand piano, 7 feet long from stem to stern, 5 feet across at the keyboard. It weighs 900 pounds. It's not that I'm a concert pianist or anything close, but I have been playing piano since I was in 5th grade, and I am attached to it.
I've had bad experiences with piano movers. When I moved from Palo Alto to Sunnyvale, one of the assistants took his own car instead of riding in the van, and on the way (it's a straight shot, 8 miles down a local expressway), he got lost. With one guy short, I had to grab some ropes and help out, especially when they got stuck on some curving stairs. That's when you realize the potential impact of 900 pounds. For this next move, I'm going to get references first.
But apart from the piano, and of course my clothes and some subset of my books (the rest will get recycled), I will bid a fond adieu to the furniture, tell the new owners that I hope they enjoy it as much as I did, and move on.
