I have been a lurker here for some time. For the past year I have been house shopping and dreaming of building my bench, restoring and using hand tools, reading wood, and finessing it into furniture. Part 1 is done, I just bought a house.

The house has a 22x12 family room addition from 1977 that is floor to ceiling 6" wide by 1" aromatic cedar (the dumb luck part), which may sound nice but its not.
The previous owners coated the walls with polyurethane; they are dark and the original planer marks are visible in the finish. I was not even aware they were cedar until I found the blueprints which specified the wood as aromatic cedar. No trace of the original scent until the wood is cut or sanded.

I am pulling down all the cedar, unfortunately the tongue and groove are splitting in the process. I intend to recycle the cedar to make shelves for the linen and bedroom closets and possibly line all the bedroom closets with cedar too.

This is my first house, dads shop is a few hundred miles away, and I have little budget and no machines. Under these circumstances I think my best solution would be to buy a tongue and groove plane for this project.

I have other planes - 1, 3, 4, 5, 605, 6, 7. This might be a nice "all hand tool project". Granted, I do not use the #1

I imagine I can:
Remove tongue/groove with jointer plane.
Remove finish with scraper or scraper plane - I may know where a scraper plane is.
Then get a tongue and groove plane - there lays the question.

Should I spring for a Lie-Nielson #49 or try to save money and get a Stanley #49 and hope it is in decent shape?
I can easily justify the Lie-Nielson purchase but wonder if a Stanley in really nice shape is comparable at half the cost?
Are there other tongue and groove plans I should consider?

The House will eventually have a shop:
- I intend to put machines in the heated/cooled attached garage and roll them out when needed.
- I reserve the basement area for hand tools only. A quiet space for civilized working; dust outside, chips inside.

Side question. Are Maple Bowling Alley lanes considered a good surface for a work bench? They are 2.5" thick and nearly 40" wide. I recently saw somebody advertising lanes cut to length. I am cheating myself out of the joy of building my own bench top if I do this.