Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Forum best way to put a rug under a piano...

yes this is a large rug, which logistically precludes some suggestions about sliding the rug around and unrolling it from certain positions.

i experimented placing a rug under the piano, but frankly visual aesthetics are involved here as well... i, or should i say my wife, doesn't want a potpourri of rugs and baffles hanging off of the walls. with the hardwood floors, glass sliders, plaster walls and low ceilings the most effective and visually pleasing solution is a large rug with a pad underneath. drums, piano & furniture will go on top of it. it should tie everything together nicely.

the rug people have indicated that the only viable solution is moving the piano out of the room, and at this point that's what i'm going to do... have my movers roll it into the hall, lay down the pad and then the rug and get everything lined up perfectly, and then move the piano back in and relocate it a few inches further back in the room (been wanting to do this anyway).

And when everything settles in satisfactorily, invite your tuner back.

i'm hoping if i invite him quickly enough he'll give me a 'touch-up' rate

13 x 16 is a pretty large rug. It looks like it will fill up most of your floor space, so your problem is getting the piano in one corner of the room on top of one corner of the rug.

I would first position the pad and carpet where you want them in the other three corners. You then have the rest of the pad and carpet bunched up in the center of the room. As you lift each leg, have someone pull the pad in under each leg until you are happy where it is positioned. Then repeat with the carpet, which you obviously hope will overlap the pad.

It can be a two person job. For the lifting of each leg, position a chair next to the leg and right at the piano. Sit on the chair and use your knees to lift and hold the leg up. It is surprisingly easy to lift and hold a leg up on a large grand this way.

I read stuff like this and my only comment is "WHERE ARE THE MEN" Are we really this helpless?? So it takes a few go-rounds to get it into position with a couple of friends/neighbors. I have done this kind of thing by myself with a hydraulic car jack and a length of a 4"X 4" with my concert-grands. Alternately, you can make a template of the location of the legs and transfer that location to the rug using some masking tape, then just line up the tape with the wheels. Honestly we can't be this stupid or helpless or it's all over!!!!

Haha, the same thing occurred to me. People are so dainty these days. Calling piano movers to install a rug? Nah, just get a few decent size guys and get busy! Pianos are heavy, yes, but the fact that they are on 3 legs means you never have to lift much of that weight. You just have to get your strategy right before you start lifting.

john pels & ando, you can choose to get your buddies, a case of beer and a car jack to lift your 900 lb $65k piano while trying to jockey a 13x16 pad-then-rug underneath it but even tho i may have slept at a holiday inn express last night i'd prefer to make sure something like the following video doesn't happen...

It's just a matter of physics, Entheo. If you think it through, it's not so hard. I've moved heavier things than your piano with just a few strong men. But if you want to hire a mover, be my guest. Don't know why you started a thread asking for different opinions if you only see one possibility though. I wish you luck with the move though.

+1

My wife and I alone have moved our Yamaha G7 (not light) all over our main floor. We moved it to the kitchen while carpet was installed, moved it to different locations in the living room for various reasons. I'm 70 years old and we recently moved it so we could have a flat screen mounted above it and then moved it back. Not a big deal and we never even considered calling a mover. It's a puzzle to me too.

appreciate the good wishes ando; yes i have now thought it thru with the help of others here on this thread, and the many possibilities have been narrowed down to one.

The thread was started to get various opinions and then make a decision on how best to proceed.

Mission accomplished.

Your piano is much smaller and you didn't mentioned anything about trying to put a rug underneath the piano which is far different from rolling a piano. On a hardwood floor several people can usually move a piano no problem, but even there disasters can occur (and sometimes occur even in piano showrooms where the people have moved pianos hundreds of times).

Why do you assume he only had one possibility in mind when he started the thread?

Helpful as always, PL...

Your comment was incorrectly critical of the OP. I already gave my opinion about what I thought was the best way to put the rug under the piano earlier in the thread.

Apparently OP didn't agree with your idea and you found it necessary to insult him for no reason. Your rude and sarcastic comment about him starting a thread but not wanting different opinions was just plain wrong. He got a large variety of opinions and reached a conclusion.

Entheo, I'm just trying to have you give yourself more credit. As my family will attest, I perpetually play a game of "how do I get off the island?" If you really have to solve a problem, you will. As far as the beer goes, I don't drink, and as I have said, I have done this myself, and I told you how. Admittedly my pianos are a bit heavier, 1200 lbs and 1500lbs respectively, but it is still doable by lifting one leg at a time. In truth it is easier than rolling a piano, even on hardwoods which puts considerable stress on the legs and their attachment points. For what it's worth, I took down a tree about the same size as that in the video a few weeks ago. I notice that he seems to have no guy wires to persuade the tree to go in any particular direction.My plight was that going the other direction would have landed my tree on my neighbor's roof. He's a good neighbor, but as we know THAT has its limitations.

I laud you for asking for advice, but don't give up too quickly, nor sell yourself short!

I really don't think my G7 is much smaller than a C7, probably pretty darn close. The G7 is 7' 4". I haven't weighed it.

We moved the piano, had a whole room carpet installed and moved the piano back onto it. It was not a problem, obviously you have to use common sense and care.

john, i'm not one who gives up easily -- i cycled up two of the hardest climbs in all of professional cycling (alpe d'huez and mont ventoux) last summer. but discretion is the better part of valor.

after moving in we decided that we wanted to move the piano back a few inches. my stepson (a strapping 25 year old) and his friend were called upon to lift each leg so i could remove the caster cups. the tail wasn't so bad, but it took almost all of their strength to get the subsequent legs up and the cups out. that's like 1/2" lifting. sure, rolling it on a hardwood floor is no big deal, but lifting each leg possibly as much as a foot to get the remaining rolled rug under it (while they're standing there, and having to lift their legs as well while lifting the piano for the passage of the rug) seems a good way to use up one's hernia deductible. and there's the little matter of perfectly lining up the rug with the pad, of which there's a 1" tolerance.

so i prefer to solve problems i'm well qualified to. both the rug store and my piano mover, along with many esteemed opinions here (sam et. al.), indicate that the best way to do this is to get the piano out of the room first, lay the pad & rug to my satisfaction, then return the piano on the dolly (it will have to be broken down just like it was being moved to another location) to the new location and set her back up.

the risk (injury to piano and/or people, and/or a rug that's ill-placed and/or out of alignment) just ain't worth the reward (saving under $200).

The gifts just keep on coming...

fait accompli...