<p>Lately, I've been seeing lots of pictures of pianos turned into bookshelves, horns made into lamps, drums becoming tables, and of course, the video that's making the rounds called "how to turn your viola into a tennis racquet." My reaction is a mix of delight and horror - I think the end product looks really cool but part of me just cringes that they're doing this to an instrument. What's your take on this trend?</p>
<p>Hopefully these instruments were no longer fixable. Son took a school instrument repair class and has been working in the school shop repairing instruments used for teaching. Unfortunately, some instruments are too far gone to repair.</p>
<p>I’ve seen beautiful violins with ruined tops flipped over and made into clocks with the gorgeous maple back as the face. I suppose if you put enough money into an instrument it could be restored depending on the value of the instrument.</p>
<p>stradmom, I actually turned son’s first owned instrument into a bedside lamp.(I still lurk.) </p>
<p>Violadad!!! We miss you.</p>
<p>My daughter’s first oboe-- it sits lonely in it’s case and she won’t part with it. She did play it one day last year as her present Oboe was being professionally cleaned and adjusted. But now we’re looking at purchasing Oboe #3 and it would be a shame for #1 to just sit in it’s case for years. But she’s very attached! As a matter of fact, the oboe she had for 3 months-- the school owned Selmer-- she didn’t even want to give that back! Her teacher has antique oboes that are no longer playable displayed on her wall where she gives lesson, along with other music related items. I don’t know if this is what daughter is thinking, or what you could do with a beginner Fox oboe. Still, I can’t complain I have my 30 year old Clarinet! And played it the other day on a 30 year old reed! </p>
<p>With some instruments there comes a time when it doesn’t pay to repair them, student level instruments especially might not be worth the effort to repair. With more expensive instruments, it is a different story (note, my frame of reference here are string instruments, and high end pianos, depends on the instrument)…the high end instruments, especially violins, have gotten so expensive that it almost always pays to repair them. Last year Tarisio had a Vuillaume violin that some parts of it were literally the size of matchsticks, it was in pieces, and someone paid like 20k for it, and would probably take 200k to repair it…but because of the name, probably could make that back selling it fixed. </p>
<p>And since viola dad is here, I won’t make any viola jokes vis a vis repurposing:)</p>
<p>I raise money for our local Music Club (comprised of music teachers, some retired). We actively solicit donations of old instruments, we repair them and offer them back to the middle schools in our area. They are so very appreciative. If we get a donation of something super nice, we “ebay” it and use the money to buy school level instruments.</p>