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Look! Handmade Bowling Ball Wall

021109-bowlingball.jpg The words, "bowling, ball, and wall", aren't ones you hear used in conjunction very often, but nestled in an a well established neighborhood in downtown Kansas City, those words come to life. We love the small injection of personality in a space that is usually bland and forgotten. The opposite side of the wall is made from something different, click through to see what!


021109-bbthumbs.jpg

 
 

021109-bowlingball2.jpg Some of the bowling balls in the wall have started to crack over time, but that just increases the charm that it possesses.

021109-bowlingball5.jpg After some quick math (High School paid off) we calculated that there's roughly 80 balls making up this side of the wall.

021109-bowlingball3.jpg The other side of the wall is made from something different entirely, glass insulators.

021109-bowlingball4.jpg Glass insulators are an easy find here in the midwest and it's a creative use for them, although we have to admit, we like the bowling balls better!


Does your neighborhood have a unique home in it? Take a picture on your next walk, tag it with "apartmenttherapychicago" in Flickr and let us see!

Tags

Look!, handmade, diy, walls, exterior, unusual, fence

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Comments (35)

That looks horrible

posted by Amazake on February 11th 2009 at 6:46pm
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Craptacular.

posted by Lori on February 11th 2009 at 6:52pm
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I try to keep it positive and I think the idea has potential but this is one of the ugliest things I have ever seen. I am having the equivalent of an heart attack for my eyes! Yikes!
Is this a joke from Farnsworthy?

posted by profumodibergamo on February 11th 2009 at 6:53pm
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Not sure if I can get behind that. It looks like a big pokey wall of giant marbles. However, I do like the colours and texture of the other wall made of glass insulators.

posted by Mlle Kate on February 11th 2009 at 6:53pm
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Ten dollars says the neighbors hate this. Ten more says this is where the local harmless wingnut lives. Either he'll talk your ear off or he's never spoken to anyone.

posted by amanda bee on February 11th 2009 at 6:54pm
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Yuck!

posted by jfinteriors on February 11th 2009 at 6:55pm
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No. Just, no.

posted by brenjay on February 11th 2009 at 6:57pm
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Better that than a landfill, I say, but FUGLY for sure.

posted by dmh on February 11th 2009 at 7:04pm
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save it from landfill vs. bring landfill to your neighborhood. this looks disgusting.

posted by lab director on February 11th 2009 at 7:08pm
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O M G


BLEAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

posted by Daniel Poitiers on February 11th 2009 at 7:14pm
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What's next? Flowerbeds in old car tires?

posted by bromelia on February 11th 2009 at 7:18pm
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Bromelia, my neighbor has an actual metal bed in her front yard. I think it's supposed to be a flower bed - but there aren't ever any flowers in it.

posted by sam on February 11th 2009 at 7:53pm
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no thank you

posted by puck on February 11th 2009 at 7:54pm
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At first glance, this is just craaaaaaaaazy! ugly, but at second glance, it's not the bowling balls that makes it ugly - it's the jagged jutting rocks in between them. I'm by no means any sort of mason, but I would have used something a little more.... less. Then it would just be quirky and not this sort of godawful. Unfortunately for the other wall, those insulators just look like someone stuffed an empty soda bottle in a gap in the concrete. It might be one of those things that looks better when you really look at it, one of those things you can't really expect anybody to do and to appreciate. When the immediate impression is of someone who doesn't tend their wall for repairing cracks and often lets trash accumulate in them, it ain't good. A couple perfectly great ideas for a local art attraction failed in the execution.

posted by K T G on February 11th 2009 at 7:54pm
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The Mellow Mushroom down the street has a bowling ball wall.

posted by sarahisaghost on February 11th 2009 at 8:04pm
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I once saw an interesting use of bowling balls as yard art -- they were only in related pearlized colors and arranged in a zen like manner in beds of crushed stone or pea gravel or something... but this is a non-starter. Glad that's not my street!

posted by SherryBinNH on February 11th 2009 at 8:06pm
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I saw something similar to SherryBinNH - bowling bowls as yard art in a garden... it looked really cool.

But that wall is just not right.

posted by sunan on February 11th 2009 at 8:17pm
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This is about 5 blocks from mine. Amazingly, the wall is even uglier in person... but a charming kind of ugly. In the homeowner's defense, this street is kind of sketchy and this is one of the better kept-up houses there - and that's accounting for the (ahem) strangeness of the wall. Picture lots of run-down apartments and houses in need of repair. Up until very recently whoever built this was very possibly the only person on the block willing to do any kind of maintenence... so I can't kill them too much for this.

posted by matt in kc on February 11th 2009 at 8:47pm
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For a minute there I thought this was an ATAustin post. perhaps the owner of this house is an Austin transplant?

posted by Seaside on February 11th 2009 at 9:05pm
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Thanks so much this will go great with my tire planter, just the right touch.

posted by LoriSF on February 11th 2009 at 9:33pm
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I bet whoever lives there has a great sense of humor, is a lot of fun to know and grasps concepts like independent thought. I love original yard art.

posted by scarletdog on February 11th 2009 at 9:56pm
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I kind of was expecting this to be in Austin.

posted by charlenemcbride on February 11th 2009 at 10:26pm
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oh, forgot to mention: in the first photo, note the flag painted on the house two doors down. like I said above, it's an oddball (ha) neighborhood.

posted by matt in kc on February 11th 2009 at 10:28pm
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LOVE this wall more than 70% of the yuppie garbage du jour featured in too many AT posts.

posted by thatbob on February 11th 2009 at 11:43pm
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That is horrible! I am glad that house isn't on my block.

posted by sunrise on February 12th 2009 at 5:55am
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It may not be aesthetically polished, but it's definitely creative. Working with found materials is a lot of fun, whether it's done for trendy reasons or out of necessity.

posted by Bobbini on February 12th 2009 at 8:52am
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Cooky! :)

posted by gryt on February 12th 2009 at 10:13am
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Let's encourage more of this. Real estate isn't dropping fast enough.

posted by LBhirise on February 12th 2009 at 10:24am
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just because you can doesn't mean you should.

posted by n2denim on February 12th 2009 at 11:16am
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Wow.

I could get behind this as a concept if it were even remotely well-executed (e.g. using ONLY balls, even mortar joints, possibly double-sided, with some attention to the color scheme), but I gotta agree with most of the posters above: this is a train wreck.

posted by rockypondgirl on February 12th 2009 at 1:36pm
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this had potential... but I agree. horrible execution. if the balls were embedded in the wall a bit more and the rocks between them weren't so harsh and ugly, it could actually be kind of fun.

this reminds me of a yard near the house of a friend when I was young: in a very nice neighborhood, they chose to spell out SUGAR in large white rocks in their front flower bed...

posted by foodefafa on February 12th 2009 at 5:35pm
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I totally agree with K T G. This could be much more charming if it were rounded stones in between, v.s jagged. I absolutely love the resourcefulness and recycling, if not the specific execution.

posted by Loosetooth on February 13th 2009 at 9:04pm
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Love it! Not everything has to look like a McMansion or homeowner association vanilla nightmare. Even if you don't like it you have to give the people some credit for RECYCLING and trying something new. Also, if you are a neighbor, think of it this way: everyone will be able to find their way to your house if you tell them you live next door to the bowling ball wall.

posted by jgphotomom on February 14th 2009 at 11:22pm
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This might be interesting if the wall were smooth around the bowling balls, but the way it is, it just looks messy, and the cracked bowling balls are a deal breaker.

posted by kuroneko on February 16th 2009 at 1:27pm
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reminds me of the gum wall at downtown san luis obispo

posted by Sumhope on February 20th 2009 at 4:10pm
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