When we started to visit stores, it was sort of like a used car dealership-type experience. Like we'd play a piano, and we say how much is this one? And then, they go to the office, and come back 15 minutes later, and show us, this is the price. And now, you go play another piano, and how much is that one? And we started doing internet research. And I pretty quickly stumbled across the Lindeblad site and was kind of blown away as far as the educational material that was there.

I was at work one day. And she called me. I called back. I thought it was some emergency. And it was actually her calling and saying, I found this website for this Lindeblad place. And they've got all these wonderful testimonials and these pictures.

So I thought, well, I'm so impressed by the website. I'm going to call an actual person. And I got Todd Lindeblad, not even a receptionist. My first concern was the shipping coming from New Jersey, because we had originally thought we'd get something local and have it shipped half an hour away, and it would be negligible. And he said, actually, the shipping is reasonable. And we found it to be definitely reasonable. It was a very small fraction of the overall purchase price.

I first liked it just because I'm cheap. And I like the cost saving issue. But then when you start reading about them, it's like, wow, they're talking about it in this certain years. They're actually, arguably better or at least as good as new Steinway.

Todd was so personable. And I think one thing that really made us comfortable was the fact that he never dismissed our unease. He kept saying, this is a huge investment. You have every right to be nervous. Ask me as many questions as you want, whenever you want.

When Leisa then started talking to the piano salesman at the gallery where we were looking, it was just kind of comical how every time he'd have another list of 10 things that he would email her daily just poking holes with this thing, and again, trying to scare her about how crazy this would be to buy a-- he would've kept referring to it as a mail order piano. And I got to admit, he get me a little nervous. So then I'd tell Leisa, ask Todd this, this, and this this time.

We commented about it. We think Todd would get kind of sick of addressing all these concerns over and over, but every time, it was come back with answers to these holes that the salesman was trying to pick. And again, I thought it was kind of funny when all is said and done, where before he was just showing us these new Steinways at these super high prices. And then suddenly, once he saw we're starting to really lean in this direction, he suddenly was telling us, we've got ways where you can get some rebuilt ones too, refurbished ones. And where was that before?

At first, we were going to settle for something less than a Steinway because we thought we had to get new. So that's what got us really excited to hear not only that restored pianos-- the quality's there, but the fact that we can get this awesome piano within our budget. I was shocked by the warranties offered. Their warranties are all 10, 20 years on the pianos. We're expecting it to last for our lifetimes and our kids' lifetimes. And they're standing behind it for enough time to know that it's going to last.