Sunday, April 1, 2012

Bowling Birthday Party Fun!


This weekend my son had a bowling party! It was the first bowling party I have thrown and we had sooooo much fun! The awesome thing is -- we didn't even have to leave our house! That's right - we turned my house into a bowling alley! It was easier than I thought - and worth it, since my boys LOVE to bowl!!





Here is how we did this amazing transformation!

  • First -- pick a spot in your house that has lots of room! I have a small house, so I chose my living room and dining area since they are connected; this gave us a nice long space.
  • Then you need to clear out your space. I just put my couch and dining room table in my garage and moved out any other small furniture, pictures - everything! Wow! My house looked so much bigger after I did that!




  • Next, I needed to lay the floor down. To make bowling floors I needed a LOT of wood. If you have the money, you can use high gloss laminated wood floors, but since I'm on a budget, I raided Home Depot's plywood (for a base) and scrap lumber for the glossy strips. Plus, they almost always have this bin FULL:



Check out all that wood!! Score!!!

  • Between the plywood base and higher quality scraps, I had enough wood for TWO bowling lanes! Woot! Woot! To prep the wood, just sand like normal, paint the bowling lane arrows & lines on the wood (I just used a ruler and a stencil) and then paint, and paint {and paint!} with a clear varnish. Since these floors were for bowling, I used FOUR coats of varnish. (Phew!) But, trust me, the more coats the better if you want that authentic bowling ally look!

  • To lay the floor down, I just set it carefully on top of my tile. (The wood was so heavy, it didn't need to be secured down.) As the last coat of varnish was drying I set up the bowling pins and back drop for the pins - which, surprisingly, you can buy online here.

  • After you set up your bowling pins and the lanes are dry, that's it! You're almost done! Want gutter bumpers? 10-20 feet of PVC pipe spray painted silver does the trick! (And is light weight if you want to remove them between players!)

  • Last but not least, you just need friends -- and the bowling balls!!

you can just go to a REAL bowling alley and bowl -- which is what WE did!!!



APRIL FOOLS!!!!!


{Wink} No, I did NOT make my own bowling alley in my home! There was no furniture removal, varnishing floors or buying bowling pins...
However, we DID throw a super fun REAL bowling party, at a real bowling alley, which you can look at here:

Bowling Birthday Party

Sooo, did I fool you?? How about you -- did you trick anyone today? :):):)


3 comments:

Four Marrs and One Venus said...

You Booger! Totally got me- seriously I was like- WOW- she goes all out!!! HAHAHAHAHAH!! Awesome job lady- it worked on me! ;) Can't wait to see the real party now!! ha!

LillysNLollipops said...

Haha I was super impressed with you... You totally got me lol.

Kristine@thefoleyfam said...

HAHAHA!!! I was like, "for reals?!" Nice one friend!! XOXO

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