Home bowling alley?

StreetzKing

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anyone have there own bowling alley? I know they sell ball bowlers but there pricey, I was looking at something on youtube and if you ever play the game where you click the videos on the right randomly you get to see some cool shit. Eventually I ended up seeing people who made bowling alleys in there house. nothing crazy but some had automatic pin settings and seemed to use the 4" bowling balls and stuff. Anyone do this? LOL

looks awesome..

 
I wondered what it would take to build a full sized lane. I think the main issue is the length from seating to lane to pinsetters. That's probably longer than most basements are wide.
 
my uncle almost bought a house with a full size lane in it, he went with the house with the bigger game room for his pool table.. i was like NoOOoOoOo. I dont even bowl. I would LOVE a ball bowler but like I said, pricey..
 
Length would be the main issue for a full size lane.
The length from foul line to pin deck is 60 ft.
Then you have 15 ft for the approach and the pin deck is 2' 10 3/16"
So you would need a minimum of 77'-10 3/16" to install a lane.
 
yeah im talking a 1/2 scale or candlestick lane, not a full size thing.. LOL either way its still a crap load of space.. dont have it either. the ball bowlers are what 13-16 ft??
 
I got a quote just for the heck of it to see what it would cost to have 2 full size lanes installed at home-not that I have the space or money for it. It was just about $120,000 for two lanes and it did not include any electric that would need to be run. They were synthetic lanes with automated scorers. This was from a company out of Florida. We were thinking something like $20,000 where it might be doable, guess we were way off.
 
We looked a few years ago, just for fun, and the price was around 100k per lane. This was from AMF or Brunswick I believe.
 
I measured and designed a layout but its just not worth the time or effort in the long run. Well, at least not to me...saying you have a full-sized bowling in your basement sounds great but maintenance and repairs can eat up time and money.

Instead, I sunk the money into a dedicated home theater which gets a ton of use. We watch movies and sports not to mention the endless hours of playing video games. I have stadium seating, power leather recliners, seat shakers and an acoustically transparent screen to give my theater a professional look. The family loves the theater!

I have already started adding classic arcade games to the basement and I hope to start building a bar in the not too distant future.
 
I think what would be interesting - from the perspective of these hobbies and DIY - to buy the pinsetter mechanism and the old equipment from an old bowling alley..rebuild it, build an alley raised up off of the concrete slab for the ball return, deck in solid wood, etc..

You'd need 10 or 12 foot basement ceilings for the raised alley to work - $$$$ and an 80ish foot run, like one said. I guess it is best left to mansions.

To anyone interested in ball bowlers, this is like the ultimate, and they are EXPENSIVE..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flfLVkU9gSo
 
Growing up around Cleveland I knew a few houses that had full size alleys and remember stories of people buying a house with one and tearing it out. Always made me sad, I would have loved to grow up in a house with one. Cleveland is a BIG bowling town.

Why all the talk about basements and mansions though? Build a nice addition or outbuilding for your arcade and include an alley. :)
 
I stocked a gameroom full of arcades for Penny Hardaway when he played for the Phoenix Suns. Of course his salary that year was $18million.

Anyways his gameroom was in his 4000sq ft guesthouse in the bar area. Off to the side of the bar in another room was a 2 lane bowling alley with another attached room the size of a small bedroom with racks of bowling shoes for men and women. This place was amazing.

It was featured on MTV cribs too.
 
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I do believe theres a bowling alley one of the presidents had installed in the white house.

There's a show on some channel too called "Million Dollar Rooms" that I saw with some dude that had some installed in his house, crazy shit.
 
I googled.

Nixon built it, it looked like this:

bowling-alley-2006-thumb-425x573.jpg


When Obama took office, he was famously a bad bowler, so some company offered to pimp out the old bowling alley in the basement to bring it up to date, so it now looks like this:

New%20White%20House%20bowling%20alley%20small.jpg
 
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