How To Switch Out A Rug Under a Grand Piano

September 25, 2020

It was time to switch out the rug in the music room. And we didn’t feel like waiting or paying professional piano movers to do it. Scroll down to see how Nate and I lifted a 500 pound baby grand to change out our area rug.

I will be honest. Nate and I were a little scared to try this ourselves. So many things in our minds were freaking us out: the biggest being that we might crack our beautiful baby grand piano. But after talking it through and looking at several ideas online we came up with our own plan. It ended up taking us about 20 minutes and saving us at least $100.

The part that took the longest was actually getting the new rug set up and measured in the right place before rolling it out under the piano.

We didn’t buy anything, which seems crazy, but you actually don’t need much. All you need are 4 things.

A large stump. You can find these at any composting site. (If you don’t have access to a large stump you might be able to accomplish the same thing with a stack of 2×4’s cut to size, but we didn’t attempt that).
A car jack (most cars have one in the trunk near the spare tire).
A 2x6x8 wood board. We just happen to have some scraps in our garage from various projects. You want the wood to be wide in both width and length so it distributes the weight evenly.
A half yard or full yard of felt that is folded several times to act as the protective padding between the piano surface and the wood board.

We used the stump from our living room that acts as our side table. We removed the legs, turned it upside down, just in case the car jack dug into the wood a little bit. It ended up not denting it or scratching it at all.

I know, I know! This sounds risky and insane, but I’m telling you it worked like a charm! We had no problems and no damage to anything.

We put the stump down, placed the car jack on top of the stump, then the wood board went on top of the car jack, and finally, the felt went on top of the wood board.

I held the wood board and felt in place on top of the car jack while Nate slowly cranked the right end of the piano up. When there was enough pressure holding it in place I let go and Nate kept cranking until we got the leg about 2 inches off the ground.

We had our old rug already rolled up to the piano leg and our new rug pad and new area rug measured and taped in place rolled up next to it.

Once the first leg was lifted we unrolled our new rug because the roll was too high and we slide it under the leg and then rerolled the pad and rug.

As I mentioned before, we measured our rug pad and new area rug and taped one end to the floor so as we maneuvered it under the piano leg it was positioned correctly.

We slid the new rug pad and rug under the lifted piano leg.

After everything was under as far as we could go. We re-measured our rug placement, just making sure it was still exactly where we wanted it and then we lowered the right leg onto the rug.

Then we lowered the jack, I grabbed the wood board and felt and we moved to the left side of the piano and repeated the same steps.

We were so excited that it worked well and went as smoothly as it did.

Have you ever done something as crazy as this?!?

Stay tuned for more DIYs in this room! I’ll be striping and sanding this antique chair next, then sending it to be reupholstered. Can’t wait to share more with you!