In my house growing up we had a door frame where the height of my siblings and I and ALL of our friends are recorded. It has never been cleaned off and my parents have lived there for almost 30 years! It is so fun to go visit them and read the wall and now my boys want their height recorded there too. I hope they never move, or if they do they will have to take the door frame with them!
I have my own version of this. It is not my idea, in fact I have seen several different blogs and a magazine with pictures of this. This is my version and how I did it.
I started with a scrap piece of wood - I have mentioned before that my scrap pile is really pileS and I have lots of stuff :-). It is a piece of pine with lots of knots which I was fine with. It is a 1 X 10 in a 6 ft length. Which means it measures 3/4" x 9 1/4"...... I remember my Dad explaining that to me when I was in junior high and it did not make sense then and it still does not.... anyways...it had been on the wall as a shelf that the previous owner installed. That is why some areas look lighter. That was against wood and not exposed to air. The other side is painted white and I did not want to use that side because it would be too much work to strip the paint. If I'm being honest!!!
I sanded it down and then cleaned it up. I used wood conditioner, which I rarely use, because of the discoloration in the wood. I also used a new stain color for me. Dark Walnut is what I chose. It is a little blacker that I thought it would be. Almost with a charcoal or ashy undertone. I usually prefer something that has warmer undertones, like a honey color, but I like this too.
Disclaimer: I am just an itty bitty newbie blogger and do not have any products I sponsor (or sponsor me??)... I just like to share what I used and how it worked, or did not work
So I applied the wood conditioner and stain as the directions on the can state. I used a clean rag (an old white cotton shirt cut up) to apply both. I also worked in the garage for ventilation purposes. After letting it sit for a day or so (cause I was working) I brought it in the house to add all the lines to it. I love the fact that when I walk into the family room carrying a 6 foot board and sit on the chair with it across my lap my hubby does not make a peep: no questions, no reaction, no raised eyebrows or funny looks no nothing. I guess he just knows me well!! I used a pencil and ruler to put the lines on, then went over them with a black sharpie. Yup, no painting......just a sharpie. I printed out numbers 1 - 6 in Microsoft word. I used 175 size font in American Typewriter. Then traced over the letter to make a slight indent (pine is very soft) and then colored it in. That is it.
The wood is far from perfect....there is a piece missing from the bottom below the 1. There is also a random red mark down there too. The stain took darker in some areas (as you can see in the photo above), but I love the imperfectness of it.
I started the numbers where I did so that I can hang it several inches off the floor and will just check the measurements when I hang it so that it is at actual height (if that makes sense). If I started at 1" (a little mark - not the 1' mark) I would have had to sit it on the floor to be an accurate measurement. I want to hang it on the wall and clear the baseboard by several inches and still be accurate height measurement.
Hope you have a great rest of your weekend and Happy Patriots Day to all my Massachusetts readers!!!
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Funky Junk Interiors
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