As a real estate broker you come upon many challenges everyday, sometimes they can be daunting!

A repeat client of mine inherited a home in Overland Park, KS and wanted it sold; his brother had listed it with another Realtor® who had shown the home for months without getting the personal possessions removed and the home ready for sale. Since it been on the market for many months when I acquired the listing, the first thing I suggested was to clean it up!

We got bids and cleaned everything out of the property, pulled up the old carpet, exposing beautiful wood floors. We painted all the walls and just spiffed it up a bit. The first day on the MLS we had thirteen showings and a solid full price offer!

One challenge remained, an 600-700 pound antique piano in the living room, I tried to donate it to charities, but no one wanted to move it. So we talked about moving it ourselves.

I have my own maintenance crew so it seemed a possibility, until I actually tried to move it for the carpet crew. At that point I decided this was going to require a professional.

I Googled "piano movers" and came up with several, after reading the reviews for O'Connor's Moving I suggested we try them.

Moving a piano (in one piece) requires a great deal of effort, strength and preparation, the guys from O'connor's had all of that. They showed up with four guys, a ramp, wheeled dollies and a sizable truck.

They took the time to prep the piano with padding, tape and clingy wrap to protect it. Then they strapped it securely to a board that fit nicely onto a wheeled dolly. Finding that the piano would not make the turn at the entrance they brought it back in to stand it up on its side.

Out the door, down the ramp and then up safely into the truck, the piano was strapped to the interior of the truck and hauled to its new owner in a flash.

This herculean effort was pulled of by four stout young men without damage to the home or the antique piano.

If you find yourself needing to move a piano, consider having a professional do it, or at least make sure you have plenty of strong help and take a look at the slideshow below to see how it can be done safely!

Anytime a piano is moved it will likely require tuning by a professional piano turner, make sure you do your homework.

If moving the piano locally the typical cost is about $250 - $300, and well worth the cost to save yourself injury, damage to your home or damage to the piano.