How to Make a Wooden Growth Chart

Want to track your children’s growth but don’t want to mark up a door frame or wall? Follow these simple instructions to make a beautiful growth chart you can take with you if you move!

Way back before we had kids (and before Pinterest) I had the idea of creating something that would hang on a wall in our home and could be used to measure our children’s heights at each birthday.

Basically a growth chart.

I didn’t know exactly what it would look like, but I wanted it to be something we could take with us if we ever moved and something that could withstand years of use without getting ruined.

I was also hoping it would tie in with our “farmhouse decor” and that I could make it myself (preferably for cheap!)

One day during our 2012 kitchen renovation, I uncovered a very old board in excellent condition (our home was built in 1890) and decided it was THE board for my growth chart.

After a little sanding, a couple coats of stain/lacquer, and some Sharpie markings, my growth chart was ready to hang… just in time for Nora’s first birthday.

Now, over a decade later, I’m so glad I took a couple of hours to make this project happen!

It’s sort of our birthday “thing” now — everyone needs to get a picture in front of the growth chart, preferably while holding up their age.

Why We Love this Growth Chart

For starters, it just looks cool hanging next to our kid’s pictures in our hallway (an area that is instantly visible whenever you walk into our front door or our dining room).

Also, it’s super sturdy and durable since it’s a solid wood board.

And… we can take it down in a minute if we ever move to a new home, repaint the hallway, or just put it somewhere else in our current home.

It’s also a fun conversation piece as people always ask about it. The kids love pointing out how tall they currently are or how much they’ve grown since the last time they were measured.

Weirdly enough, I also love how imperfect it is. The markings are not 100% perfect, the writing is a bit scribbled, sometimes 2 kids are the same height at a certain age so we need to get creative with those markings, and there are even a few “oops” where we made the mark in the wrong spot.

If you’re looking for a fun, frugal, relatively simple project to do for your kids/grandkids or even WITH your kids/grandkids, this growth chart might just be it.

And don’t worry if you aren’t starting from the beginning — just start now and move forward! You won’t regret making this fun and easy keep-sake that your kids and grandkids will enjoy looking back on for years to come!

Supplies for a Wooden Growth Chart

• wooden board (mine is 1″ x 8″ x 7′ long)
• stain or paint — we stained ours with leftover stain from our floors
• polyurethane (optional if you want to seal the finish)
• number stencils — a blog reader made me stencils with her Cricut… thanks Becky!
• pencil and black Sharpie for the inch lines and numbers (or paint if you prefer)
• tape measure and ruler to get the numbers evenly spaced
• carpenter’s square to make sure the lines are straight
• nails or screws to fasten it to the wall

How to Make a Wooden Growth Chart

1. Stain or paint your board and let it dry.

2. Do 2 – 3 coats of polyurethane (if you stained the board) lightly sanding between coats.

3. Decide where you will hang your board (this is important for figuring out the inch markings)

4. Use your tape measure and square to mark the foot “lines” in pencil (based on how high you will hang it on the wall).

5. Use the ruler to measure the inch lines with pencil.

6. If you are satisfied with the look of your lines, use a Sharpie (or black paint) to darken these lines and make them permanent.

7. Use stencils to trace numbers with a pencil, then color them in with a black Sharpie or paint (you may also free-hand them if you have nice handwriting).