Piano and specialty pieces
Specialty work has been Terrell Boykin’s desk for years. He handles baby grands and uprights, gun safes anywhere from 600 up to 1,400 lbs, slate billiard tables, and the odd gallery canvas or oversized wardrobe. Most of all, people call about pianos coming out of walk-ups and high-rise towers, where a stair carry is a world apart from an elevator roll.
A specialty piece won’t fit a straight hourly clock, so each one gets its own flat figure — set by the piece, the floor it’s on, the stairs or elevator involved, and how the street lets us load. Loads are insured to a $1,000,000 ceiling, start at sixty cents per pound of released value, and stay claimable nine months.
What specialty pieces typically cost
| Item | Crew | Typical flat rate |
|---|---|---|
| Upright piano on grade or in an elevator building | 3 movers | $400 – $600 |
| Upright piano carried up a walk-up staircase | 3 movers | $600 – $880 |
| Baby grand crated with legs and lyre detached | 3–4 movers | $900 – $1,400 |
| Gun safe, 600–900 lbs, elevator access | 3 movers | $480 – $760 |
| Slate pool table taken apart and re-leveled | 3–4 movers | $660 – $1,120 |
Overrun jobs revert to $185/hr with the three-person specialty team, yet the signed flat figure is still what you pay.
Why a stair carry is its own job
Taking a baby grand down four flights of an Old Fourth Ward walk-up, the legs and lyre come off up top, then it’s a slow, tracked descent one landing at a time. On a high-rise, a 1,200-pound safe rides the freight elevator on laid plywood. When it’s the smart move, the specialty piece gets a day of its own — or folds into your residential or long-distance job.
What your Atlanta, GA flat rate already covers
- Every piano rides on a padded piano board with a four-wheel dolly and fitted straps
- Baby grands get the legs, lyre and pedals removed and a crate built to size
- A safe dolly rated beyond 1,500 pounds and stair climbers take on tight, steep runs
- Slate pool tables broken down on request, then re-leveled with the felt checked
- Pieces wrapped and padded for carries over stairwells, loading docks and elevators
- Full-value protection available, capped at a $1,000,000 ceiling
So what does it come to?
A two-mover crew and the truck runs $135/hr while the clock is going — or freeze it with one signed, metro-Atlanta flat rate that fits the entire job onto a single page
That rate already folds in the moving pads, the dollies, the shrink-wrap and the slow hand-carries a Buckhead condo or an Old Fourth Ward walk-up demands — plus whatever Certificate of Insurance a Midtown tower or a suburban HOA needs before load-day. Put a third mover on the job and the hourly steps up to $185.
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