Upright Piano Painting and Glow-Up!

We have been working on converting our dining room into more of a ~sitting room situation~ for the past couple of months and the first purchase we made was a little upright piano off Facebook marketplace for about $100. The piano was clearly in storage for a while because it was dusty and smelled a bit like mothballs, but all of the keys worked great. The big problem was the color of the piano.

The piano was clearly a dark cherry color at one point that had been lightened by the sun and time. Our house came with gray floors and our decor color scheme tends to be a bit more cool-toned, so I knew that the original color of the piano was not going to work.

The piano also had had a lot of scratches, some dings that needed wood filler, and some random paint splashes on it, so it was going to need some kind of rehab.

Could I have stripped it completely, sanded it down, and re-stained it? Sure. However, that would have taken me 4 times as long. Also, I just REALLY liked the idea of having a black piano!

Supplies I used:

• small paint roller
• small edged paint brush
• wood filler
• mouse sander
• sanding sponge
• Citristrip
• Mineral spirits
• putty scraper
• Steel scratch brush
• microfiber rag
• Paint
• drop cloth to prevent mess!
• Barkeepers friend for polishing any metals
• clear or natural furniture wax

Piano Painting Process

I started off with the bench to make sure I liked the color of the paint and just to start small with this project. The bench, which you can probably tell from the before pictures, was in a MUCH worse state than the piano. It was scratched and the clear polycrylic was chipping. I tried to just sand it down and then paint over it, but because of the chipping polycrylic, it became clear that I was not going to get smooth paint unless I stripped it. I used Citristrip and left it for a few hours before scraping off with a putty scraper and a steel scratch brush for smaller detail areas. Once I got the majority of the Citristrip off, I used a disposable rag with some mineral spirits to get any remaining Citristrip off. The next day, I used my mouse sander to even things out and make the bench top super smooth before painting it with the roller (I used a brush for smaller areas). I used 2 coats of paint and then used 2 coats of furniture wax on it to protect it.

The paint color I used was cracked pepper by Behr in matte finish. I really loved this color because it was less of a true black, which I worried would be a little bit too stark. It’s more of a very dark grey with some blue-ish purple undertones.

For the piano, I started off by filling big chips and dents with wood filler and let it dry. Then I used my mouse sander over the entire piano to create some grit and give the paint something to hold onto. I didn’t feel the need to strip the piano of the stain because it was not chipping and was already pretty smooth (whereas the bench was not). I dusted the piano off once it was sanded down, put my drop cloth around the piano to protect the floors, taped off the keys and pedals, and got to work!

The roller gave a smooth, even finish on big areas and the brush was used just to get into smaller areas. I ended up doing 2 coats total and then did 2 coats of furniture wax to protect it.

For finishing touches, I used some barkeepers friend to polish up the brass pedals and leg wheels. Just look at that before and after:

And then I got to push it back, style it and enjoy playing it!

We’ve been in this house for over 2 years now and NEVER use our dining room, so making this a piano/sitting room is already proving to be so much more functional for us!