When you're the owner of a century-old piano that absolutely must fit into any place you live, open houses are an especially important part of the home-buying process. Paul Ybarbo was in exactly that situation when he was purchasing his one-bedroom condo at Nob Hill's Clay-Jones building. He'd bought the piano from its second-ever owner, who then became his piano teacher, and there was no way that he was willing to part with it. Instead, he came up with a creative solution to determine if it would fit in a space. "I would bring a paper cutout of the piano's shape and lay it out on the floor at every open house," he explains. He had been in a number of units at the Clay-Jones before he finally settled on one where the layout truly worked for the piano. Ybarbo, a broker at Sotheby's International Realty, placed the piano in a prime position in the living room and then began building the rest of his new home around it.
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