Latch Board

It is a goal of mine to make a present for Liam for his birthday and Christmas. His birthday one, was his felt board and for Christmas it was his latch board. One of my friend's turned me onto them by showing me some on their Pinterest board. I decided that would be perfect with my kid that loves that type of thing. Of course I first found ones that I would love to copy. I found some great ideas.

http://www.thephotographerswife.com/latch-board-activity-toy-kids-diy/

 

 https://jabaayave.wordpress.com/2013/02/03/diy-latch-board/

 

http://www.younghouselove.com/2013/01/last-minute-latch/

 

http://makebakeandlove.blogspot.com/2014/07/diy-latch-board-for-emerson.html

 

http://www.tealandlime.com/2011/12/diy-latches-board-kids-gift/

 

http://runninglawyer.blogspot.com/2013/08/diy-lock-and-hinge-board-for-toddlers.html

I then made a list of all the pieces I wanted for Liam's board, and got pictures of them because I do not know the actual names of most latches. I picked about 10 different ones. I was trying to keep the project cheap so I decided to go to our local Habitat for Humanity ReStore to get all of the supplies.  I went down there and was thrilled to find everything I needed and after heading up to the register, I found out that they also have pieces of wood, so I went back to the back of the store and found the perfect size board and a smaller piece for my doors to be cut out of. The only thing they didn't have was the color of paint I wanted so I went to Lowes and $6 later, I had my 2 different colors of paint for the board and the doors. When I got home I took everything carefully out of the packaging and put all the screws and whatnot in ziploc bags around the board so I didn't lose them and arranged everything on the board and took pictures.

I took pictures because I was not installing any of the latches myself and so this way made it faster. I painted it all with 2 coats of paint, taking advantage of the fact was hubby was out of town and we didn't have 2 cars in the garage.

I had asked my dad to help me put it all together, so the next day I brought it all over to my parent's house, luckily Liam decided to fall asleep right then so we didn't have to make my mom watch him. It took us about an hour and a half total to attach all the pieces. I am so glad that I had my dad to help me because some of the pieces needed adjusting to make them work, or to be oiled and some of the screws were too long and went all the way through the board so he grinded them down so they wouldn't poke Liam. I had to repaint some spots because the grinding machine thing destroyed the paint in a few places.

Overall I am very pleased with how it turned out, it wasn't very expensive (it totaled about $46) and Liam seems to love it too.  I am not completely done yet, I plan on put carabiners on the handles, put a mirror or vinyl animal underneath the doors, and put locks on the eye hook and the other lock thing.  But it is pretty close to done and Liam doesn't know the difference, it will just be more exciting when new things get randomly added.