I was recently participating in a thread on Houzz where a woman had one of the first Steinway pianos - which is untunable because the earliest ones were made before they standardized Steinway equipment and so the tools no longer exist to tune it (yes, the whole thing is hand made). It is gorgeous but Steinway has told her it will never be playable. She has had all kinds of offers to turn it into kitchen islands, bars, etc., but hates having it not used for creating music; some suggestions came up for her to insert player piano mechanisms into which I think is where she is going - essentially it will be a large but beautiful CD player.
It’s really sad that the old pianos can no longer be used but with so much beautiful wood around, having people find a way to use them for something is better than them moldering away in someone’s storage space unseen and unheard. I’m not totally nuts about this staircase’s execution but the idea of a piano stairway is a neat one.
