growing

Seeing as how we're growing, not just as a family, but two kids aged 2 and 5 do some pretty nice growing on their own, we've always wanted a nice way to capture it.  Up until now, it's been on our master bath wall.  And as I've mentioned before, builder beige is very blah, as well as won't wipe down well at all, so the walls look filthy (yes, they painted the bathrooms in flat paint).

So, as much as I love this wall with all the markings of my kids' growth, it is time for it to go.  The bathroom needs to be painted, and I want something that could come with us (if we ever moved, but I don't foresee that at any time in the near to distant future).

So a while back, hubby made a white wooden one, but it had no measurement markings on it or anything.  I offered to add them, but never got around to it.  Truth is, I didn't really like the one he made.  He didn't really care for it either - but we were trying to fix a problem.  We knew where we wanted to put it, but yet it never was hung.  This wall is just off the kitchen and playroom and next to our powder room.  Everytime we go on a family trip, we pick up a memento from our travels.  We picked up this carved piece on a trip to Jamaica.  I have a lizard painted in aboriginal style from Australia. a wooden carved turtle from Mexico, and we have a Koa wooden paddle we bought in Hawaii.

This has been hanging here since we moved in, and I decided to evict it for the growth chart - if we ever got around to finishing it/making a new one.   

Then one day I was cruising around various blogs on the web, and found these gorgeous growth charts from Dear Lillie.  I saw that she sold them, but also saw that she followed the tutorial available on the blog 517 creations to make them, so I went ahead and did the same.  It was SUPER easy to make and came together quickly.  But then it sat waiting for a couple coats of poly for, well, a couple months. Sigh....

It's all done and hanging in the hallway where the Jamaica carving once was, and I absolutely love it.  I started the markings (spaced every inch) at 6" and hung it 6" from the ground.  Only thing left to do is take it into the bathroom to transfer all the old markings, and hopefully I'll get to that sooner rather than later.

What do you think?  Do you have a growth chart like this or similar in your home?  Or do you prefer to do it in a doorway/wall/casing of some kind?