Piano and gun-safe moving
Round up a few friends to wrestle a piano or a gun safe with a rented dolly and the usual result is a damaged instrument and somebody’s wrenched back. We route these jobs to Brett Lawson, who has spent years working under heavy safes and instruments.
I will bring a baby grand up out of a South Hill daylight basement and across an icy porch at the new place with the case unmarked and the drywall untouched. From the first lift to the moment it is set in place, only our own crew’s hands touch the straps. — Brett Lawson
Pieces he takes on
If it is heavy and it genuinely matters, it usually lands on Brett’s schedule: consoles and uprights, baby grands, full concert instruments, the enormous old player pianos, and gun safes, the half-ton-and-heavier kind eased up a basement stairwell or across a Green Bluff porch through a tight Spokane doorway.
Up a basement flight, across an icy porch
- Wrap and shrink Applied first, with the lid, lyre, and legs padded or unbolted depending on the instrument.
- Board and strap Across the flat runs the instrument rides a four-wheel piano board, cinched tight so it never shifts a hair on a Browne’s Addition hardwood floor.
- Plot the route A long daylight-basement stair run leaves no margin, so the crew walks every landing before a hand goes on the piece, and a winter porch gets the same advance scouting for ice.
- Ease it up, tread by tread Brought up the flight one tread at a time, safes on the identical rated rigging, never muscled by hand.
- Level and place Once it is inside the new Spokane home, Brett trues it up and walks it to the exact corner you have in mind.
What it runs
| Piece | Typical flat rate |
|---|---|
| Upright piano | $400 to $650 |
| Baby grand | $750 to $1,200 |
| Gun safe (by weight) | Quoted on weight and stairs |
The stairs are the job
Being honest, it is the stairs that prompt most of these calls. South Hill daylight basements run deep and the Browne’s Addition staircases bend hard at the landing, and getting a baby grand up one is work for a mover with a hundred such carries behind him. That mover is Brett, and the route is plotted before a finger touches the keys.
One flat written price
Whether the piano is quoted on its own or folded into the price for the whole move is your call. You see the written figure well ahead of move day, and the mover handling your baby grand is the very same Pettinger employee handling the rest of the load.
