The Yardstick of Life

When I was growing up, my parents would periodically measure us by marking our height on the doorjamb of their closet and then measuring that with a tape measure.  I remember loving to look back on how much I had grown.

We did something similar with our kids in our previous houses, but have had to leave them when we moved.  Apparently, you can't take a doorjamb with you.  Who knew?  I know we wrote down the numbers somewhere, but we may never find it and that makes me so sad!

I have wanted to make a growth chart for the kids forever, and have had the idea of making it look like a ruler for nearly forever, but only recently actually did it.  There are many tutorials on this, I'm sure, and many methods, but this is what I did.

Supplies:
1x6, cut to whatever length you wish.  Ours is six feet long.
stain or paint
rags and dropcloths
tape measure
painter's tape
pencil
carpenter's quick square {I just googled the name - I would have called it a triangle}
craft paint and brush
paint pen
number stencils or print outs from the computer

First, I protected my work area so the stain didn't get everywhere.  It was too cold to do this outside or in the workshop on sawhorses.  That would have definitely been optimal.

I used a wood conditioner to prepare the wood for stain {Minwax Jacobean, left over from another project}.  I like the end result a lot, but was really concerned that I had made a mistake early on.

Here's the board stained.  It was a little blotchy, even with the conditioner {which is supposed to keep that from happening}.  Make sure the get the sides!

It was a bit better after the second coat but not amazing.  I don't know why.  I decided to go ahead with it because I was going for a weathered old look anyway.  After it dried, I marked my lines with the triangle {or, according to google, the carpenter's quick square}.

Here's a better shot of that.  The lines over the dark stain are a little hard to see.  I marked the feet all the way across and made little tics at each inch.  I should say here that because I was planning to hang the board six inches off the ground, my first foot marking was actually at six inches from the bottom.  Get it?  Six inches plus inches make one foot.  You're welcome.

Then I taped either side of the pencil line, just eyeballing equal distance.

I used craft paint to paint my foot markers.

A paint pen made better inch marks.  I just taped the board so the marks would end at the same place.

I must have forgotten to take a picture of painting the numbers, but it was pretty easy.  I just printed off the numbers in a font and size I liked.  I think you could trace the numbers with a pencil and paint inside the lines, but I used the cut out paper as a stencil and painted inside with a foam brush.  They aren't perfect, but I think they're kind of charming.

 Finally, I bolted it to the wall.  I wanted an industrial look, so Handsome Hero picked up these galvanized washers and hex bolts.  I really dig the look.

We decided to put it right in the kid zone, next to Ella's bedroom door.  To get this picture, I'm sitting on the stairs coming down, so it's the first thing you see when you came into the basement.

 

And already christened with their measurements.

Jack's all boy room

Last summer we redid Ella's room so that it didn't look like she lives in a dungeon basement.  Jack has been waiting patiently for his turn to come out of the darkness, but he finally started wondering where his pretty room was.

 

The room was dull, dingy, and screamed basement. There wasn't really a place for books and toy storage outside of the drawers under his bed {which are wonderful but not enough}, so we put this white cabinet in {above}, but it was always a bit tipsy and made me nervous.  This definitely wasn't going to work for two boys - we're going to move Nate in here when he stops waking up talking and singing in the middle of the night.  Yes, I'm serious.

I didn't really have a direction for the room except that it needed to be blue, the only worthy color in Jack's world.  When I found this home décor-weight blue camo fabric on clearance for $2/yd, I bought them out.  I used some for curtains, and will use more for other projects around the room.  I have thoughts of making a teepee out of it.  Wouldn't that be fun?

 We painted the walls ultra white to make it as bright and cheerful as possible, which was a little hard for Jack to swallow, but he only has one window {which is always in the shade} and there is blue nearly everywhere, so he came around.  The thing that makes the room is the peg board Handsome Hero installed along one wall.  I love this wall.  I like to pet it.

The bed area is the least complete.  I don't have bedding yet, but it will be blue!  I'm trying to figure out a solution to the difficulty of making an upper bunk.  Any ideas?  I'm thinking of doing away with the top sheet and replacing it with a kid sized comforter/duvet that can just be folded at the foot during the day.  Also, we are planning to hang lanterns from the wall by each bunk so the boys each have a bunk reading light, and I'm going to make something for book storage.  Not sure what.  Maybe a book sling with a pocket for the flashlight?  Maybe a narrow basket that we can attach to the wall?  I don't know, but it will be pink!  No, wait.  That's not right.  Blue!

These cute car prints came from Ikea and I already had the frames and mats.

I made this sign by simply tracing some letters and then nailing around my line, just eyeballing distance, and wrapping string randomly around.  I still need to trim my threads!

The licence plates are from everywhere we've lived plus New York, where my sister lives and Handsome Hero's brother lived.  The pegboard baskets came from a store that was closing in the mall.  I grabbed all they had. I love that we can rearrange everything if need be.  Peg board is just so BOY, you know?

Nothing's permanent.  Everything is hung with hooks.

Jack loves his room.  It took him a little while to be okay with it being white instead of blue, but he really enjoys playing in here now.  He doesn't want it messed up and is beginning to take ownership of cleaning the space.  I hope he stays that way.

Oh, and here's his closet.  I didn't paint it, but I did move his workbench in here since it's still usable beneath hanging shirts.

Here's the cool part.  See that little door?  It leads to an under-the-stairs storage area that we are planning to make into a secret hide out.  There's even another exit out the other side for escaping pirates and stuff.  I'm already planning my Mom of the Year party.

This might be my favorite room in the house.  I think it's because we took a design risk by putting up the pegboard.  Or maybe it's because we worked together on it and had fun in the process.  Maybe it's just because I love doing kid rooms.

So what's still to do?  I found a low cabinet for book storage to take the place of the bookshelf under the window, which is actually a shoe shelf from our closet.  You can't put any books upright and they keep spilling out, so that's next.  Then bedding, bunk lights, and a book holder of some kind and we're done!

Until it's time to work on the secret passage way....