Silver Lining: DIY Growth Chart

March 27, 2017

DIY Growth Chart

Big news over here: I finally accomplished something from my To Do Eventually list (remember this post when I admitted I hadn't done anything from that list since I was pregnant with twins?).

When we were growing up, we marked our heights on the little wall between the kitchen and dining room. But when my family moved when I was in college, the house stagers unceremoniously painted over it and it was lost forever. I'm unreasonably sad about it, and ever since I became a mom, I've been bemoaning the fact that we're renting and can't mark anyone's height on the wall, and if we did, we'd lose it when we moved anyway.

Enter this DIY growth chart. It's main function is to mark all the kids' heights as they grow, and we can take it with us wherever we move. It's also cute and decorative. It's also a nice way to fill an empty bit of wall in a hallway, children's play room, or nursery. And, like all my crafts, it's so easy and very hard to mess up.

First, I went to Home Depot for my supplies. I got a pine board that was one inch thick, eight inches wide, and six feet tall. They normally come eight feet tall, but I smiled really nicely at an employee who cut it down to six feet for me for free. I also grabbed a mini can of wood stain (I got this one in Early American, but only because they were out of the Classic Grey). Grab a sheet of sandpaper too if you don't have one. The board was about $2.50 and the stain was about $4.50.

When I got home I sanded down my board really nicely (after the sandpaper fiasco I shared on my Instagram story, that is). I made sure to wipe off my board really well after the sanding. Then I used a super old rag dipped in stain to stain the entire front of the board and all the small sides. It went quickly and was very easy. I did two coats of stain.

I let it dry on our covered porch for three days. Which actually means I meant to let it dry for one day, but then I got busy and totally forgot about it for two more days. Third day's the charm?

I was originally going to paint each and every tick mark on there myself. Mark it off with a pencil, trace it with a sharpie, and then use paint to fill in the tick mark. And then repeat that 71 more times for the 71 additional tick marks. And then print out a stencil for each of the numbers, pencil them on, outline them, and paint them in. Yikes.

Instead I got this vinyl decal packet. You guys. If you want to do this project, hurry and order this packet like right now. It's so easy. And comes with detailed and easy-to-follow instructions. And only took me 10 minutes total to put it all on. And it stays on really well. And if you write a review, they send you your last name in vinyl for free to add to the growth chart. (For real, they do this!) And it's on sale today for only $13.79!

When you add in the vinyl decal packet, the total for this project comes to just over $20. Twenty bucks for something you'll have and use for at least the next 18 years is a pretty good deal. (You can buy premade growth charts online for $60-$80.)

But seriously everyone buy the vinyl decal packet right this second. It made this project so easy and so awesome. I got the numbers in size large, matte black.

The next step was just following the super easy instructions to attach the tick marks. It's just a peel-and-stick situation, and I really can't say enough how great the instructions were that came with it.

We used large velcro command strips (we've used these for basically everything on every wall in every house we've lived in) to stick it to the wall eight inches from the floor, et voila! Done!


Cute, easy, portable, almost impossible to mess up, and now I can be sentimental about watching my children grow as we measure them every year on their birthday.

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