It's not going to be a functional bowling alley, but I will still have one. Wednesday I was checking Craigslist and saw someone was selling sections of bowling alley for $50. I immediately sent off an e-mail asking for dimensions and started doing some research on working with reclaimed bowling alley wood. It turns out everything is held together by a thousand nails and if you want to cut through it, be prepared to ruin a saw blade or two. However once you get everything down to dimensions the wood(which can either be pine or maple depending on what section of the alley it comes from) lasts for decades and is a very durable and beautiful product. So after some e-mails back and forth I set up a time to look at the alley the next day. I was very lucky(and grateful) that my dad was also going over to Bozeman that day so I could exploit his muscles and truck to haul it back to Livingston. The man I who was selling it was very nice(a trend I'm finding) and I found out he and his wife were going to use it for a kitchen remodel but their plans changed and they can't use it anymore. Lucky for me!
Now what everyone wants, pictures!
Now what everyone wants, pictures!
A close up of the grain. As I said earlier, bowling alley is either made out of heart pine or maple depending on where it was at in the alley. Maple was used for the heavy traffic areas like where the pins fell and the balls were thrown and the middle section was heart pine. Mine is the pine section. I was hoping to pick up maple, but I am still very, very happy.
The next order of business is the ongoing project of the front door. All the paint and stain is gone and the door is a beautiful, blank slate of vertical grain douglas fir. However, removing the trim and old window panes has revealed a surprise. Long story short it would probably be more work to keep the original nine pane configuration than it would be to re-do it however I want. So I hit Photoshop to get a visual on my options. I've picked out a new, three pane, craftsman inspired design.
So the next phase in the door journey is getting a glass quote and eventually getting three, long panes of glass. All of this will be doing during winter break of course, right after finals which are this upcoming week. Fun.