Bob Vila Ain’t Got Nothing On Me! Welcome to "This Old Snowboard." The Chairman of The ‘Board article that looks at practical ways of utilizing those precious old boards.

Hey everybody, welcome back! We knew it would end eventually but the off-season seems to grow longer each year. What did you do for the summer? Did you skate, windsurf, water-ski, or just spend your time in a meat locker hoping that the hot weather would just go away and leave you alone like I did? I guess we all have to put with the off-season, otherwise when would they have all the great snowboard sales?

Actually, I was lucky to get back to the U.S. for a short trip to visit some friends. I had a great time but I have to admit that there is one thing that bothered me, their homes. I was jealous to visit their homes because they were so spacious and full of character compared to my cramped drab apartment in Tokyo. So, when I returned, I was bound and determined to make some changes to bring my apartment to life!

I started by throwing away my refrigerator, toaster, stove, washing machine, bathtub and other old junk that I never use anyway. Getting rid of all that stuff certainly helped add some space but something was still missing. People kept telling me that it was my windows that were amiss but they don’t understand that I like to keep this place cool in the winter. No, the apartment was simply devoid of character and I didn’t know what to do about it until my eyes finally came to rest on the six snowboards stack in the corner of my bedroom.

"How can I remodel this apartment so that it will impress the chicks?"

Six snowboards? Well I can’t just throw them away! I carried those boards with me up and down the slopes, on and off the train, and in and out of the airports. I sharpened them at the beginning of each season, waxed them before I went and wiped them off when I was finished. They lead me to the best times of my life and guided me through some of my worst trials. I developed a special relationship with each board and I won’t throw them away!

However, it isn’t fair to the boards to just leave them in a corner when they continue to want to be a part of your daily life, right? That is why I knew when I saw those snowboards sitting there - frustrated, alone, and rejected - that I could use them to spruce up the house a little bit.

Snowboard manufacturers put a lot of money and research into the designs they put on their snowboards, so it would be a waste not to put that design to use as a decoration. Take my old Burton Air 161 with the carefully crafted picture of what appears to be a housefly. All these years I had neglected that board but all the while that housefly motif was exactly what was needed to brighten up the kitchen! So I waited until my roommate was asleep and drilled a couple of holes in the wall. I hung some wire on a couple of the binding screws, hung that board right over the kitchen door, and now that drab kitchen is just like the centerfold of Better Homes and Gardens!

Kitchen before Air 161 – drab and disgusting!	Kitchen after Air 161  – Bold and beautiful!

How sad was I, living with a dining room without a central theme? It was so unfocused and cluttered, not to mention a general public health hazard. At least it was until I decided to make a dining table out of "Old Bessie," my Burton Air Asym 155!

Making a table out of a snowboard is not easy as it might appear. Board manufacturers make those things hard, which is great when you slam them into trees and skiers’ skulls and things, but when it comes to trying to saw a hole in one of them you have a real fight on your hands! Bessie put up a real fight but I finally broke through and made the necessary cuts.

Bessie puts up a fight!

Finally I combined her with an old table-top and a tree trunk – you can find them in Tokyo if you look hard enough, just make sure you don’t cut it down until very late at night – to make a table that immortalizes an accident I had out at Niseko a couple of years ago. Now every time I go into the dining room I feel like such a fool, a limited edition goofy-cut free-style board was exactly what the dining room needed! Now everything is perfect and I never want to leave the house – I’d hate to miss Martha Stuart’s telephone call!

Dining room before Air Asym 155, somebody help me!	Dining room after ‘Old Bessie,’ why didn’t I think of it before?

Who out there doesn’t think that his or her bathroom couldn’t use a little pick-me-up? Whoever says they don’t is a confounded liar! Decorum prevents me from telling what it looked like in this article but let’s just say it looked just like it smelled. I couldn’t deny it any longer, something had to be done. Enter the ancient Avalanche Damian Dagger 161 alpen board! What was once a slowly rotting precision racer is now a fashionable and convenient toilet paper dispenser! Now I can’t picture a bathroom without a snowboard, not one that I would care to defecate in mind you. Do you have a snowboard in your bathroom? No? I’m not coming over for dinner then, and don’t be surprised if Gourmet Magazine avoids you like the plague.

Bathroom before Avalanche 161 – P.U!	Bathroom after Avalanche161 – Jeeves, I’ll be having my afters in the loo, thank you!

  
A lot of us in Japan tend to overlook the importance of interior decorating but, a happy home means a happy heart, and a happy heart means better form, more freshies, and phatter air. So take up your saws, and your hammers, and your blowtorches and get to work, you’ll be glad you did!