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It’s a dilemma that many of us face, and it came to a head for Helenmary Burnside recently when she was moving house: what to do with her old piano. The 140-year-old upright had been in her family for four generations but had been unplayable for decades after it was dropped – its frame cracked – during a previous house move. Helenmary Burnside with some of the furniture made from her piano.

Credit: Simon Schluter This was the piano she learnt to play on as a child, and that her great-grandmother, Lucy Muller, is said to have received as a wedding present in the 1870s. “I didn’t want to throw it out, but my siblings didn’t want it,” said Burnside, who lives in Pascoe Vale in Melbourne’s north. “I looked on Facebook and there was piano after piano being offered for free.



They couldn’t give them away.” But other internet sites showed artisans turning pianos into new objects, leading her to a company called Pianos Recycled in Braeside in Melbourne’s south-east. Helenmary Burnside’s Lindahl piano before it was taken apart and repurposed.

“The idea of converting the piano was fabulous,” she said. “I knew I couldn’t keep the piano as is, but I wanted to keep it as a memento of the family. I wanted to keep the history alive.

” Burnside paid the company to make eight bespoke pieces of furniture from her piano, most of which now adorn her house. She said there was intensive consultation, discussing what parts of the piano would realistically work for .

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