Some pieces are not a two-guys-and-a-blanket job. An upright in a Lakeview courtyard parlor, a baby grand on the second floor of a Lincoln Park greystone, a parlor grand at a Kenwood mansion, a 750-pound gun safe in an Andersonville basement, a marble-top antique sideboard in a Bucktown brick three-flat — these need engineered carry plans, not improvisation. Get the weight balance wrong on a Steinway B coming down a winding center stair and you damage the instrument, the bench, the floor and somebody’s shoulder. Tony runs the specialty rig at Waley and the crew is built around it.
Upright, baby grand, parlor grand, gun safe
Method depends on the piece. An upright comes down a Logan Square stair on a stair-climbing dolly with a four-strap rig and a walk-board on the destination side. A baby grand legs come off, the body lays on a padded skid board with the keyboard nose strapped first, and the trip down a Lincoln Park flight is on a four-mover lift. A parlor grand needs the same plan plus a destination ramp custom-cut at the Milwaukee Avenue yard the week before. Gun safes lock onto an engineered four-wheel safe dolly with a weight-balanced load — never a quilted blanket and a hope.
One-piece booking or rolled into a whole move
The specialty rig books as a standalone piano-only or safe-only run starting at $455, or it folds into a whole-house Waley move as an add-on if you’re relocating the entire household anyway. Tony walks the route in person on every specialty job — the upstairs origin, the stairwell turn, the downstairs landing, the curb, the truck ramp and the destination doorway — before the crew lays a finger on the instrument.
What's Covered
- Walk-boards, e-track straps, skid boards and a padded heated truck dedicated to the instrument so January cold doesn’t pop a soundboard on the I-94 leg
- Upright, console, baby grand and parlor grand methods written for the specific instrument by Tony at the walk-through, not improvised on the stair landing
- Engineered four-wheel safe dolly with weight-balanced load straps for 600-to-1,000-pound gun safes coming up or down a Bucktown basement flight
- Custom destination ramps cut at the Milwaukee Avenue yard the week before move-day when the new-house stairwell turn won’t take a standard skid
- Floor, corner and door-jamb protection along the full carry route on both ends, plus banister wraps on every greystone center-stair turn
- Standalone piano or safe run from $455, or rolled into a whole-house Waley flat at a discounted line if the household is moving the rest at the same time
What's the Cost?
Two uniformed W-2 Waley movers and the 26-ft straight truck run a posted Logan Square hourly of $185 an hour; if your room count slots cleanly into a half-day — studio, junior one-bedroom, or a tight in-building swap — Eddy will quote it as a locked flat instead, starting at $545 all-in.
Everything the day calls for is folded into that hourly figure: the two W-2 movers themselves, the 26-ft Waley truck, quilted blankets, masonite floor runners, two-wheel and four-wheel dollies, ratchet straps, walk-boards, and the lake-effect winter mats we put down off the porch in any month with salt on the sidewalk. Fuel adders, third-floor stair charges, long-carry charges from the alley to the door — none of those line items show up on a Waley invoice, period.
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