Grandpa’s 84th birthday

I’m blessed to have four amazing grandparents. Yesterday, my grandpa on my dad’s side, Grandpa Bob, turned 84. I wanted to do something special for him this year. My Grandpa Bob is a woodworker. He taught Industrial Arts in high school and even though he’s been retired for many years, he still is very active in the shop. As a matter of fact, these pieces are some of his most recent projects that he has made for Jessie, Jacob, and me.

1) Jacob & Morgan’s bedside table

2) Jessie’s quilt rack (he made one for me too)

3) Jessie & Josh’s side table

4) My side table

5) Another one of my tables

6) Jacob & Morgan’s table (note the clever raising and lowering mechanism)

Impressive, no?

The man is still very talented.

A couple weeks ago, when I went to stay in LeGrand, I went over to my grandparents’ house to visit. Grandpa had found this very old piece of wood when cleaning out a garage and saved it for me. He knew I would appreciate it and I could find something to make with it.

At first, I was interested in the wood because of the newspaper clippings that remained on it. These were from the 1930s and one was even an article about Lou Gehrig. I thought it would be cool to do something artsy with the wood where the articles could be incorporated. Then I thought it might be cooler to make him a sign for his woodshop. So I ended up painting over the articles. This was hard to do, but it was the only way I could get the sign letters to show up.

So I designed the sign in Illustrator. This was a tedious process because I didn’t find the right font I wanted to use for Grandpa’s name. I ended up drawing a font instead.

Once I had the design complete, I went to work on preparing the wood for painting. First, I used mod podge to coat the wood and give it a smooth painting surface. Next, I painted the white, and then transferred my design to the wood. Lastly, I painted the lettering. I wanted the sign to look like an old fashioned hand lettered sign.

Then I asked for my dad’s help. At first, I just wanted him to help me put a chain on the sign so grandpa could hang it in his shop. Then he sent me this sketch.

Way cooler!

Here are the shots from Dad’s welding process:

Once the welding was all finished, he coated it with a textured brown spray paint. I think the color is perfect.

The family all got together last night to celebrate both my mom’s birthday (Feb 14^th) and Grandpa’s (Feb 12^th). We had a great time together.

We gave Grandpa his gift:

And he loved it.

Happy Birthday Grandpa Bob!

Thanks to all who helped me with this project!