Homemade Presents!

My Auntie Terese said, "You and Jason work so well together.  You think of things and he makes them!"  It is kinda true.  So this past Christmas, I was stumped at what to get my Dad and Stepmom.  So here we are, 3 days before and it finally hits me, a growth chart!  Why was this the perfect gift?  Well, they have been measuring my nieces on the wall, behind the coats and if they ever move, this will be lost forever!

So Jason and I went out to Owl Lumber in Lombard.  We (really him) picked out some great wood.  We bought a total of 3 pieces of wood to his mom and my aunt could also get one, eventually.  We had no idea how this was going to go so we went to work in the basement.  Jason made the board flat and square with his joiner and plainer.

It was not time to test out how we would make the marks so it looks like a giant ruler.  Really funny that this is like using a scale factor!  Each inch was going to look like 1 foot on the wood.  Jason got out the router and we picked some different size bits out and tested.  We decided that the 1 foot marks should be the longest (2.5 inches) , then the half foot (2 inches) , quarter foot (1.5 inches) and each inch (1 inch) would be the shortest.   We had found success!

So now it was time to mark the board and go for it!  We had to set up a straight edge that I held while Jason used the router.  It was quite the process but it worked!

Now that the router part was finished, we could clean it and put a clear coat on it. For the numbers, I went to Home Depot and bought 4" address numbers.  It looks so good!

Best Christmas present ever!  Now the kids can be measured forever and ever.  I can't wait till my nieces are measuring their kids on this growth chart!