If you had told me one year ago that my living room, and den would both be half buried in music instruments, I’d have have thought you were a fool. But… I would have been wrong.
For the past 18 months or so, my family and I have been buying a flute, clarinet or sax from an auction, thrift store or antique mall every couple months. We’ve been repairing them, and either selling or donating each one. All the while talking about how cool it would be to acquire enough inventory to open a used instrument shop. Well, it seems the Universe agreed with us!
We recently won a surplus auction. We had to rent a medium sized U-haul trailer to get the instruments home. It wasn’t big enough. After the trailer was packed as tightly as we could manage (my husband called it “instrument Tetris.”) we started on the back of our SUV. When that was full, we packed the back seat.
Keep in mind that the images only show about half of our total gains. These are pictures of the den and kitchen areas of our home. We had horns in the living room and office as well. Its taken us days to inventory, sort and organize all these. And, we’re still not done.
Truthfully, it’s going to take months to figure out what each instrument needs to make it work. Some probably can’t be repaired. But, I’m sure we’ll find another use for them. I’ve already got craft ideas for ways to use the marimba parts in a craft project.
