DIY Growth Chart

Like most parents with growing kids, we like to keep track of just how much growing said kid is doing.  Until now that has mostly been in the form of doctor visits (you go a lot in the first 2 years!) but long had plans to do something at home.  Long being we bought the board to start the project last summer and finally got the finished product hanging on the wall last week.

We bought a pre-cut board at Lowe's and then spent many months debating on and off on how we were going to make this.  I had something from Pinterest I liked but Matt absolutely refused to look at anyone else's idea, wanted his to be original (I told him nothing is original anymore but he ignored me).  So this project sat for a looooong time.

Then the New Year came and we finally got motivated to tackle some of these lingering projects.  It was surprising how quick it went once we actually took the plastic wrapper off the board!  Matt sanded the board and I did two coats of paint (with built in primer) with our rejected bathroom paint (the one we realized was too dark once we had the first coat on the walls).  Matt had the ingenious idea of using the back of our old license plates for all the accents.  We had set them out to metal recycle last spring before our neighbor told us they had done that before and had their plates stolen and were charged for traffic violations in California.  So our old plates had been in the garage.

Matt cut up pieces and made the top and bottom accents and all the notches.  The numbers are house numbers from Lowes.  Those made this project kinda expensive.  I wouldn't agree on any of the cheaper styles and so...$6/number later + a board... (at least the paint and plates we already had!).  From when I painted the first coat until it was on the wall was less than a week...after 6+ months of having the board sit in the basement.

The hardest part was the hanging since we had to get the board hung straight but also at the right measurement or the whole things was worthless.  And I had a kid with a play drill climbing on my back while Matt held up the board.  But the whole process up to that point was pretty straight forward!

We haven't marked Luke's height yet (waiting until his 3rd birthday next month) but also plan to go back and add some of his previous measurements (birth, 6 months, 1 year, 2 year).  The intention is to do a different color for each kid...but that's not an issue yet.  I thought it would also be nice to add mine and Matt's measurements from the same milestones but I don't know that we have that information for Matt.  But if we ever get it I would like to add it. 

For now, Luke requests seeing what number he is after every nap time and is very pleased that he is about to the 3, both in height and age.  And he likes counting the numbers on a very regular basis.  And asks when we are going to mark him on it.  Basically, this growth chart provides a lot more entertainment than we ever thought possible.  Anything to keep him happy until the weather warms up enough for outside play!