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Wonderful!! Congratulations!

Thank you for the tips. The maintenance is scheduled. We booked piano tuner to come by in couple of month to check how the piano is adjusting to its new space.

There is indeed a air vent near by, so perhaps it is wise to move the piano. And we are getting curtains for the windows (we've just moved back from Europe, no time to decorate yet:) Just curiosity (this is our first piano) - what does the area rug under the piano do?

It attenuates the sound somewhat. Rooms with lots of hard surfaces everywhere do tend to sound boomy, which is why I mentioned that. Curtains will help, too.

Air vents are tricky— they’re never where you want them as a piano owner! In my home, there’s only one place where the piano fits, and it’s between two air vents. I use clear plastic diverters to keep most of the moving air directed away. In prior living situations, I’ve been able to either completely close a vent, or reduce its output so it won’t affect things as much.

Sound waves echo off of hard, flat surfaces. A room with hardwood floors, bare walls, no carpet and not much soft furniture (e.g., a large plush chair or fabric-y sofa) will be acoustically very "live." Having curtains, furniture etc. breaks up the sound, and having either carpeting in general or an area rug absorbs some of the sound as well.

In a room that's too bare, I often experience the piano sound as jangly, and so when we moved, I made it a point to get curtains, I have an area rug under the piano and half of the room and I have a medium sized plush chair as well as other small furnishings.

What the photo doesn't show is how large the room is or whether there are doors behind the photographer etc. Those details will alter the degree of jangley-ness (a new acronym, DOJ! So whether or not your room is too live really depends on all those factors. If playing the piano doesn't hurt your ears, you should be fine!

Re the vent, is there another one in the room? Could you close one? Another option is something like this:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0714QP65Y/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

If you decide you need an area rug, I would get a thick rug pad for underneath the rug... much cheaper than getting a thick rug 😊. The piano bench can either fit on or off the rug, just don't get a size where two legs of the bench are on and two are off

Am using a relatively thin area rug with a fairly standard thickness pad underneath (maybe 1/4” with a rubberized bottom) for my big 7 1/2 footer in not an enormous space.

Same. Here's the rug pad we bought:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0778W1QMF/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I would say our rug is not especially thick, but it's perfect with this pad. If I ever get an area rug for other rooms in the house, I would get this pad for them as well, it makes an inexpensive (cheap even!) area rug very nice.

It's the thickness of the surface/pile that really affects the sound. If I have a 1 &1/4 inch pile rug under the piano it "eats" more and slightly lower frequencies than a 3/4 inch pile on a 3/4 inch pad. I changed the area rug in my little music room. The new one is a little thicker but a foot and a half smaller so it no longer extends under the upright piano but stops just at the toe block and of course there's another 10 or so sq. ft. of bare floor. I did not expect how much more reverb time I would get but it was quite noticeable. In my case it's not unpleasant but the point is small differences have noticeable effect.

Kurt

ShiroKuro - thank you for the Amazon link for heat and air deflector. In my cart already good idea


Working on choosing a rug and window curtains - thank you to ALL who responded! Very helpful

If that's a heat vent close to the tail, you might want to keep it away from that.

Aloha. I've been lurking as you've come to your decision.
and congratulations on your son's new piano. He's a lucky young man!