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Honey-Do Project: Oversized Ruler Growth Chart
WHAT: Fun, Personal, Random, Useful Stuff   |   WHEN: April 6, 2012
My wife, like a multitude of others, is unofficially a Pinterestaholic.  And the only reason it's "unofficial" is because Dr. Phil hasn't yet come out and explicitly said there is such a thing.  It's only a matter of time, though.

Perhaps I should actually thank Pinterest.  It got my to do what nothing else has for a month and a half now... a blog post.  My blog thanks you, Pinterest.  And it thanks my wife, too.  She wanted a way to measure and document our kid(s) height(s) in a way that we can take with us whenever we leave this house. [For those reading between the lines and wondering what "kid(s)" means, number 2 is not on the way yet... just planning ahead.]

So, after a quick search of Pinterest, my wife found several examples of oversized rulers as growth charts.  And then came the honey-do look in her eyes, and that's where I enter the scene stage right.  After a quick assessment of skill-level required to do our own ruler, I was confident - even with my, ahem, underwhelming handy-man skills, - that this is something I could do.  And for extra credit, we wanted to Pottery Barn-ize our version by sprucing up the numbers a bit.  Easy peasy... instead of painting them on, we just went out and bought some decent looking brushed metal finish house numbers.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with how it came out. I did have a little issue when sanding the 2nd coat of polyurethane where it fogged over a bit.  Still not sure why, but it wasn't terrible and it was hard to notice unless you got it in just the right light.  It does kinda bug me that something like that happens at almost the very end after all the work I put in on it, but I'd rather just try to ignore my perferctionist tendencies than start over and have to tape off those God-forsaken tick marks again.

Anyway, here it is in it's final (for now) resting place in the kitchen.  And keep on reading below if you're interested in the process and wanna make your own.  



Trust me.... if I can do this, surely you or any other 4th grade shop student can.  The biggest thing you need is patience.  If you're like me, I love instant gratification on projects like this, and I have a tendency to wanna rush the waiting/curing times a bit and move on to the next step.  Patience, grasshopper.

Anyway, this is what I started with... a pre-cut 6' trim/molding board from Home Depot.  I had planned on having to find buy a larger piece of wood, cut it down, and sand it before I could do anything else, so I was pleasantly surprised to find this score.



The next step was to lightly sand the edges of the board to soften them up a bit since they were pretty sharp when I bought the piece of wood. 



After sanding, I wiped down the board to get rid of the dust from sanding and then applied a coat of stain.  I used the "Jacobean Bean" color because I wanted something darker and a little more sophisticated.



The next stage was the worst part of the whole process.  I tried to think of every shortcut I could think of to make quick work of the tick marks, but in the end I knew I wouldn't be happy if they didn't look good.  I'm sure there's probably an easier way to do them, and if you know of one, I'm not sure I even want you to tell me because I don't wanna be annoyed by how much time I might've been able to save.  I used a ruler and a pencil to mark off tick marks at every inch and then drew each tick mark on the board with pencil. Then I used painter's tape and masked off the edge of the board exposing only the areas I wanted to paint. I'm not gonna lie... total beat-down.  I wish the NCAA men's championship game woulda been a little more exciting to distract me from the monotony of taping.



Next up, painting!  I chose an oil-based glossy black paint to make sure I got a durable finish that would stand out enough against the dark stain color. I put on 2 coats, and let dry overnight.


After letting the paint dry, I removed the tape (tons more fun than putting it on), and brushed on the first thin coat of polyurethane for a protective sealant.  I let it dry for about 4 hours, and then lightly sanded the board with 220 grit sandpaper to smooth out the rouch texture of the polyurethane and then wiped the board with a damp cloth to remove the dust.  Everything looked great at that point.  I wanted to put one more light coat on for a little extra protection against anything the kiddos might try and do to it, and this is where things got a little hairy.  I used the same exact process to apply the 2nd coat of polyurethane as I did the first one, but this time when I sanded the second coat and wiped it down, I got some fogging over parts of the board. Boooooo.  

At this point I had 3 choices.  1) Dial down my anal perfectionist inner voice and let it ride as is.  2) Try to fix the fogging with some kind of ad-hoc, cross-my-fingers-and-hope-this-doesn't-ruin-everything rework process. 3) Start over.  Option 2 got eliminated pretty quickly after talking with a couple people about how I could and most-likely could not easily fix it.  Option 3?  Pffft... Not gonna happen.  I'd rather light my hair on fire and then throw gasoline on it before having to do all those tick marks again.  Sooo... option 1 it was.  And rather than call the slight fogging in a couple places defects, I'm calling them character.  Besides, they really are hardly noticeable once you get them the board outta the sunlight.



The last step was to attach the brushed nickel house numbers to the board and hang it.  The numbers were self adhesive, so... bonus!  I marked the board 3/4" from the opposite edge of the tick marks for my baseline for each of the numbers to make sure they lined up.




And voila!  Here's a closer shot of the final product after hanging it in the kitchen.



I think each year where going to put a small image of each kiddo on the board at the location designating their height for that year.  And I'm also marking my height on the board this year when I turn 40... so I can see if I've started shrinking yet.


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