Thank y‘all for the suggestions!! Really appreciate everyone helping me brainstorm the best option there 🙂 I will try different options if that’s okay with movers and share which one I go for, now I just can’t wait for the delivery haha.

With such supportive forum I feel even more motivated to pick up piano again (I haven’t played for over 10 years)

ShiroKuro thanks for sharing the pictures and experience on different placements, great reference for me.

Regarding music party, I may invite friends to play at home later, very good point on not having the back facing audience. I also feel more comfortable when I can be aware of the surroundings.

      @redrabbit glad this thread has been helpful! This is a pretty great forum 🙂 once your piano comes, you can visit the sub-forums here, Pianist Zone and Learners Lounge 🙂

      I prefer option 3.

      I really dislike the feeling of having my back to the room, and the way a piano sounds with its tail in a corner. My piano (5’8”) is set so that my bench is in the corner, and I face the room. I did find that it sounded best when the piano was at an angle. And for me, the rug made a massive difference, but I have a lot of hard surfaces in the room.

      Sound matters most, but feng shui matters too. Make sure you set things up so that you like where you sit, and you’ll enjoy your practice more. If you were not playing the piano, where do you enjoy sitting in the room? Put your bench there.

      ShiroKuro nicers for piano gatherings.

      This layout looks great. The piano will open up to the entire space and is also away from the front door.

          cheeeeee This layout looks great. The piano will open up to the entire space and is also away from the front door.

          Thank you! Yes, this placement turned out to be really, really nice! If the room had been a little bit larger, I might have concerned putting the piano at an angle, but for this room in the size that it was, I think this was the best placement that walked a line between maximizing acoustics as well as maximizing space.

          We have since sold that house and moved to another state, but it was a wonderful piano space while we were there! 🙂

            Late to the party here, #3.
            Since no one has mentioned it, how big is the mirror? If it is any size at all, it's going to be a very hard reflective surface and may impact the sound you experience. Since you say the mirror has to stay, you might consider drapes or something of sort--open when using the room as a gym, closed when the piano is in use.

              Stub

              Yes the mirror is going to be a problem… If I end up going with 3 I will definitely install something to cover it, because half of the wall is floor length mirror.

              I’m actually considering another option besides the listed ones:

              Because this one opens up to the 71” wall(which is an opening to a different room and stairs with higher ceilings), also another room next to the mirror, it has the potential. This options takes more space, which is not ideal, but I will try it out.

                  Animisha I would choose 4, but rotated 180°. So you are with your back to the walls.

                  This is what I said! 😊

                  *
                  ... feeling like the pianist on the Titanic ...

                      redrabbit so to confirm: so where it says 71” that is actually not a wall? But open floor to ceiling? And what’s the room over there with the high ceilings, a living room? Are the ceilings vaulted or flat?

                      Esp. if vaulted, you might find that the piano sounds amazing in that area. That’s basically how my piano is set up (ok, my piano room is way smaller, but it opens to the living area with uneven walls and vaulted ceilings) my dealers told me that openness and non-parallel ceilings impact how the sound travels, and while my piano sounds great when you’re sitting at the piano itself, it sounds even better in the living room…

                          There are so many factors to consider including the OP's personal taste both visual and in terms of sound, that I think the best approach by far is to simply test different positions of a piano. The relatively small size of the piano and wooden floor should make it very easy to test the possible positions and move the piano from one position to another in just a couple of minutes. Even if the first position sounds good, only by testing the others can the OP find the ideal position.

                            Animisha
                            Yes!! Thanks for the suggestion 🙂
                            I didn’t want this originally because it takes more space(need to leave room for the bench so I don’t want to tuck it too deep in the corner). But the more I think about the mirror, it makes more sense 😃

                              ShiroKuro
                              Yes it’s not a wall but an entrance to a hallway(lower ceiling) which connects with some stairs with high (maybe 12ft) but flat ceiling, and entrance of 2 other much smaller rooms (we seldom close their doors). Potentially it can lead to better sound. However, I don’t know if the sound will hit the hallway wall first and just be absorbed, then the other rooms and high ceiling may not help a lot.

                                  pianoloverus
                                  Yes I will try out soon as the piano is expected to arrive tomorrow, I hope I can find a solution I like both acoustically and aesthetically 🙂

                                    redrabbit ahh, that makes sense. Yeah, you’re just going to have to experiment…

                                    But personally, I would go with a placement that doesn’t have the piano’s tail poking out into the room. And the space between the straight end of the piano and the wall (in your most recent photo) will be sort of dead space as well.

                                      It finally arrived!

                                      We ended up placing it in the middle of the room temporarily, which seems to look and sound the best. I also enjoy playing in the middle of the room more compared to play at the corner in the previous listed options, but it’s taking sooo much space… guess we will have to plan other furniture around it now haha.

                                      It still feels a bit echoey even if the piano opens to the 71” opening, and we plan to install some acoustic panels on the wall before experimenting with more placements.

                                      But here is my baby grand 🙂

                                        Another thing--where are the heating/cooling vents for the room? It's best not to have the piano close by a heating/cooling vent--it can play havoc with the tuning. Also, what is the cord visible in the photo? Do you have a Dampp Chaser installed?

                                          Stub
                                          The heating is a great question!! There are two ceiling vents on the left and right side of the piano(marked in green in picture and the red circle is the piano’s position)

                                          The cord is for the piano disc auto play system.