piano problems.

today i went to a music shop to look at pianos, because i'm currently looking to buy a new keyboard. my wants are fairly basic; standard 88 weighted keys, a smoothe not-too-electronic-yet-not-too-acoustic common voice, possibilities for other voices and percussion, and a decent pricetag. preferably under $2000. so why am i looking to buy a new one when there's a perfectly good *real* piano living in my house? well.. my problem is this.



a beautiful piano worth a gazillion dollars more than i can scratch on my pay sits in my house, but [short introduction] hello my name is yvette and i'm a university student who spends most of the day asleep and all of the night awake like a crazy insomniac.[/short introduction] whenever i get a little inspiration to get on my piano, which is here:



..it's usually at some ungodly hour of the morning, like.. yvette wants to play guns n roses covers at 4am. see the proximity of the piano to my parents' room? you'd think it'd be no problem considering the piano has a headphone jack and a third pedal for *silent headphone mode*. think again. what to me sounds like teh luvleh musikz:



sounds like the fucking second-coming of christ and his minions descending upon the living room to my no-longer-sleeping parents.



you really have no idea how loud a "muted" piano really is at 4 in the morning, i tried listening to myself playing without headphones and it's louder than the actual music would be without the mute. so it's clear i need a new piano if i am to sustain my late-night bursts of musical inspiration without copping another sharp clip to the neck from dad as a result of forgetting how loud the goddamn keys are. so i get on my trusty old computer, looking to get some recommendations from keyboard enthusiasts, perhaps on a forum or a blog. what do i find?

..well you mean apart from the fifteen million rich kids telling you no piano under $4000 is going to sound remotely decent in the area i'm looking for? ugh. so presently i'm either stuck buying a casio, or i'm gonna have to basically scout the monday paper for the rest of eternity until some poor bastard needs to sell his keyboard that just so coincidentally happens to be *perfect for me*. sigh. :(