Deck tables from bowling lanes

A while back I got very excited when I walked into the local Habitat ReStore and found several pieces of old bowling lanes laying along the wall.

If you’ve never been to Habitat ReStore, it’s essentially a fundraising outlet for Habitat for Humanity, I’m assuming you know what that is. Contractors and others tearing down old homes, or simply restoring single rooms, will donate to ReStore what they are tearing out. They have a tremendous assortment of things there, old doors, light fixtures, desks, sinks, you name it.

I stop in occasionally just to see what’s new, and that’s how I stumbled upon the old lanes.

The back story here is that my family used to own a bowling alley. I pretty much grew up in one, starting from about junior high on. As a result, I’ve always thought it would be cool to have a bar, table or some other piece made from old lanes. Hence, my excitement when I saw these.

I picked out two pieces that were about the same size, roughly half the width of a lane and four feet long. I thought about buying more, and now regret that I didn’t, but these things are heavy and that’s all I really needed at the time.

It was a relatively easy process to turn them into tables for my deck. The 2 x 4 wood I used is leftover from previous projects.

The legs are made from a couple of landscaping timbers that I had decided I didn’t like in the yard anymore, well sanded down. I put wheels on one end so that it would be easy to move the pieces around; remember, I said these were heavy.

I intentionally didn’t make the lower shelf solid because I do leave these out in the open and I didn’t want rain and snow to constantly be resting there, damaging the wood. Also, I didn’t stain the wood but coated it with a marine finish, similar to what you might use on a boat to protect its surface.

Because they are the same height and length, I can use them as two separate tables, roll them together in a long line or shove them together in a square, depending on how I want to use them.