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 buy your own bowling balls OR

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? :):):)