The gym bleachers of the Lake Highlands High School have seen a lot of hard times in their day.
They’ve faced rhythmic stompings during basketball games, vandalism by bored PE students, and countless other tribulations in their ages of loyal service. But these times lie behind them as they move into their retirement years.
The bleachers will spend their twilight as the wall, floor and cabinets of a soon-to-be handsome Lake Highlands kitchen. Julie Alexander, the kitchen’s prime renovator along with her husband Skip, says the kitchen “looks like a cyclone hit it at the moment,” pointing to the wires hanging from the half-formed wooden walls, “but that’s because we want to do it right.
It’s been a real job.” Skip, a woodworker with connections to the school, asked to inherit the bleacher wood when the school brought in replacement seating about a year ago.
He was granted a few rows’ worth, and since that time the two have made it their pet project to remove the metal rivets, sand the wood down, clean it up, and cut it to size.
“I’ve always wanted a wooden kitchen, and it’s nice we get to use wood with such a history, instead of letting it go to the dump,” Julie says. “We’re going to give it a good, proper home here.”
