My parents have lived in the same house for 35+ years. Growing up, we’d mark our heights every so often on the doorframe of the pantry in the kitchen, the dates and initials showing how my siblings and I grew over the years. These days, I see height boards and growth charts all over with the idea being that if you move, you can now take the growth chart with you. Count me in for that idea!
There are a million examples of height boards on Pinterest ranging from simple to really fancy. Mine is decidedly on the “simple” end of the spectrum, and was really easy to make.
I got the board at Lowe’s. All of the ones I’ve seen online use 6′ x 6-8″ boards but I wanted something a little smaller, so I chose a 4′ x 3.5″ piece of poplar. I sanded it, stained it, and let it dry for a couple days. Then it was time to add the ruler marks!
I marked every inch with a pencil, and then traced over that with a black paint pen. I’d planned to make the markings run from 2 feet to 6 feet, but just before I added the numbers, I realized I needed to shift the scale just a bit to have room for a number at the top or bottom. It’s pretty unlikely that anyone in our family will end up being more than 6 feet tall, but shifting it down (which would have put the top at 5’10”) seemed like it might be cutting things a bit too close. So I went the other way. The bottom of the board is 2’2″ and the top is 6’2″.
I printed the numbers on a sheet of paper, cut them out, and used them as a template to trace the outlines, which I then filled in with paint pen. Once the numbers were done, I covered the whole board with two coats of polyurethane. I’d planned to drill a hole through the board and hang it on a nail, but at the last minute I decided to attach a picture hanger to the back instead to avoid messing up the look with a drilled hole.
For now, it’s hanging in the breakfast room next to the back door, secured with a bit of command hook velcro on the bottom to keep it from swinging if it gets bumped. I figure we’ll add a mark for Emma on her birthday every year, and maybe her half birthdays too (at least while she’s still young and growing fast). She was 30″ tall at her 1-year checkup and 32.75″ at 18 months, so I’m going to retroactively add markings for each of those. And we’ll add the next one when she turns 2 in August!