I know it seems like #2 theoretically allows for more space, but as a practical matter will it really? I don't have the answer; you really need to figure out how you're going to furnish the rest of the room in order to determine how it will affect the room.

I'm with AM and prefer #3. I'd be working around that premise and going from there...

Re the space question.... the interesting thing is that #3 will give depth to the room, while #2 cuts the room in half and the piano will probably be like a barrier for that half of the room. But with #3, your eye would probably go deeper into the room, and chairs can be placed probably closer to the piano along the wall towards the keyboard...

So yeah, #3 might actually feel more spacious. When it gets to that point, I'll have to see if I can do some photoshopping to see what it looks like.

The angle doesn’t even have to be that acute. I’m definitely not at a 45 degree angle to the wall, maybe more like 30? But it really made me feel like I was part of what’s going on in the room.

It also feels more inviting to me as the pianist to have the space at the bench opening up to the room.

I realize you’re not in the corner like this, but you get the idea.



Piano parallel to wall



Slightly open to the room

quote:

Originally posted by AdagioM:
It also feels more inviting to me as the pianist to have the space at the bench opening up to the room.



Piano parallel to wall

Mine is parallel to wall like this as well. Keyboard welcoming me to play; I can view all in the room. Room is small. Piano is just over 6 ft.

We had so much trouble finding a house that met all our needs and had a good place for the piano, much more trouble than I had in Florida. Houses here tend to have great rooms downstairs and bonus space upstairs. The two houses in Florida where I had the big piano had two and three living spaces downstairs, which made it easy to place the piano.

Anyway, this house has an archway dividing the great room into two areas of about 16x20. I'm pretty spatially challenged and, though that archway is limiting in some ways, it helped me visualize how to arrange things and thus it sold us a house.

Here's a photo taken when the piano was moved in, so you can see the layout of the room a bit better.

This is taken from the front door. (Yes, y'all, I know the piano is too close to the front door. Like I said, we had trouble finding space where the piano would even fit. I don't use the front door all that much, but Quirt does. The piano still sounds great after three years in that spot.)




Here's a view from the other direction.




It is a nuisance to have to put furniture in a house when the piano is entitled to pride of place. But we do need to sit down. The couch is not actually as close to the bench as it looks here, but it slides around on the wood floors and I do usually have to shift it back into position when I sit down to play. It really is a game of inches in this room. The piano could move a foot closer to the door and it would probably work, but it would encroach on traffic coming into the house, and it already has a scratch when someone who was probably me got too close when she was carrying something past it. I still have some decorating I want to do in the other half of the double room, but I'm happy with this half of it.

AdagioM, thanks for those photos. It's a little bit hard to tell the difference with the angled placement since the photos are more close up on the piano, but I will definitely consider angling.

LL, when you say your room is small, do you have an idea of how small?

My piano room is 11' by 18'. But the 18' direction has the front door and a triple window on one side, and a doorway (into family room) on the other side, so that limits the layout quite a bit. I've been planning to have the piano on the 11' wall, but that probably isn't the only workable configuration...

BTW on the topic of room sizes, the living room in our rental house was 20' x 13.5' -- which is a great size except that room was our main living space, so it had sofa, two plush chairs, TV, fireplace, plus upright piano. It would have been hard to get a grand in there. (Also, fireplaces! Lovely, but totally waste of wall space in terms of piano placement.)

MA thanks for those photos!! I love your space, and that piano is beautiful. Also, I love how the piano is in between the living room part and the dining room part, it makes the piano so integral to the house itself.

On the topic of great rooms... Ban them all! I know there are people who have pianos in their great room, but the way Mr. SK cooks, we just couldn't do it. So we feel very lucky to have this house, which has the front room (piano room) totally separate from the room next to it, which we use as the family room. And then the family room and the kitchen share a half wall, which gives that part of the house a nice open feel. Sort of the best of both worlds, I think.

After considerable deliberation, I'd finally decided (given the author and overall context of your recent threads), that your good news must concern pianos and room size.

My first assumption, though (and how often it IS the subject of congratulations in my own life, when true), was you had just successfully tried on a favorite item of personally vintage clothing.

(I'd love to see you again in either of your spectacular wedding dresses. WHAT a wondrous show of feminine and bi-cultural beauty that celebration must have been for the fortunate attendants. Come to think of it, the wedding of one of KathyK's daughters-in-law was similarly graced).

If only we'd had the funds for a more lavish do, I might have had a go at mixed attire for my own wedding. My sisters-in-law had given me items of Turkish folk style clothing. Trying them on occasionally, it was fun to see how different I looked in Middle-Eastern wear, even if they weren't fancy enough for a wedding. Among them were traditional silk drapery and/or brocades including a pretty (and comfortable) Shalwar*, my face framed in hand-woven head coverings, some held in place by ropes of gold - not real - coins. I might have had a very different look in our album. Amazing how much clothing has the power to transform, even without ethnic alterations - especially with my (then blond) hair covered.

*Shalwars are the flowing trousers popular everywhere in Turkey for both sexes and suitable for anything from peasant work-wear to celebratory attire. At least, had I gone that route they'd have been sure to still fit me today!

quote:

LL, when you say your room is small, do you have an idea of how small?

11 ? is the wall where the piano is. Outside wall. Other width is about 10 with two doors at other corner, to kitchen and to LR

It is also my computer room. Can't show pics cuz of that new system to share.