The kids' heights are on the door jamb. Can I take it with me when we move?

Usually not. You can't take the door jamb with you without taking the door out and rebuilding the opening, which no buyer will accept, and that's a job for a carpenter. Check first: many 'jamb' marks are actually on the casing, the flat trim around the opening, which is a much smaller job. If they really are on the jamb, photograph them with a tape measure in the shot, write down every height, then trace them or have them printed life-size.

Can I take the doorframe with my kids' height marks when I sell the house?

Maybe. Trim is usually treated as a fixture, which goes with the house unless it's excluded, so ask your agent before you list or before an offer. If you do take it, have a carpenter or handyman do the work and ask your agent about getting new casing up before closing. The jamb itself is much harder to take than the casing.

What's the cheapest way to keep a growth chart when moving?

Photograph it with a tape measure in the shot and write down the height of every mark from the floor. It costs nothing and takes twenty minutes. Everything else — tracing, taking the trim, printing — works better if you did this first.

How do I transfer height marks to a new house?

Measure each mark from the finished floor, write the heights down, and re-mark them at the same heights in the new house with the names and dates. Or have the original marks printed life-size on canvas so the actual handwriting moves with you and you keep measuring on it.

What if the height marks are on the wall, not the doorframe?

Photograph and record them first. Tracing onto paper or tape works on drywall. Cutting the section out and patching the wall is possible but a bigger job than taking trim. A life-size print works the same on a wall as on a frame.

Moving Out? How to Save the Height Marks on Your Doorframe (Every Method, Compared)

Updated 2026-10-09

Somewhere in the house there’s a doorframe (or a door jamb, or a patch of wall) with a column of pencil lines, each one with a name and a date beside it. It’s the one thing in the house you can’t pack. Here’s every way people actually deal with it, what each one costs you in time and money, and what each one keeps.

Whatever you decide, do the first one today. It takes twenty minutes and every other method works better if you did it.

1. Have your chart printed life-size ($79 — it’s what we do!)

Photograph the frame the way method 2 describes, measure two of the marks and tell us their heights (that’s what makes it accurate), and the software straightens the photos and stitches them together into one life-size image. The result is a canvas scroll with wooden hangers that you take with you and keep measuring on.

That’s Keep the Marks. It’s $79, shipping included anywhere in the 50 states. You can build the print and see it before you order.

Keeps: the original look and contents.
Doesn’t keep: the physical wood or wall.

2. Photograph it properly (free, 20 minutes)

Not a snapshot from across the room. A photo that could be used to rebuild the chart:

Hook a tape measure on the floor and run it up beside the marks. Leave it there for every shot.
Stand back four or five feet, hold the phone at the height of the section you’re shooting, and shoot straight on. Take three overlapping shots — top, middle, bottom.
Shoot in daylight from a window, no flash. For faint pencil, take one extra shot with a lamp raking across the surface from the side.
Then write the numbers down: every mark, its height from the floor, the name and the date. Photos fade in a camera roll; a note in your phone doesn’t.

That’s it. You now have a record that survives anything the rest of the move does. The full method, including how to make the photos true to scale, is in How to photograph height marks so they stay accurate.

Keeps: the handwriting, the exact heights, the look of the frame. Doesn’t keep: anything physical. It’s a record, not a thing on the wall.

3. Trace the marks onto tape or paper (free, an hour)

The classic. Run a strip of wide painter’s tape or a length of paper down the frame beside the marks, mark the floor line on it, then copy each line across with a ruler and write the name and date. Roll it up, move, unroll it against the new frame with the floor line on the floor, and transfer.

It works. It’s what people on parenting forums have been telling each other to do for twenty years. Two cautions: painter’s tape stretches, so trace onto paper if you can (a roll of brown kraft paper is a few dollars); and check your lines against a tape measure before you roll it up, because a strip that’s out by half an inch stays out forever.

Keeps: the heights, on something you can hang up next to the new frame. Doesn’t keep: the actual handwriting. It’s your copy of their marks.

4. Write the ledger (free, 15 minutes)

Just measure. Each mark, height from the finished floor to the sixteenth of an inch, name, date. Put it in a note, a spreadsheet, the back of the family Bible — anywhere it will still be in ten years.

This is the least sentimental method and the most durable. It’s the one that makes every other method recoverable if something goes wrong. If the tape tracing gets wet or the trim cracks in the truck, the ledger rebuilds it.

Keeps: the data. Doesn’t keep: anything you’d want to look at.

5. Take the casing with you ($20–$100 for replacement trim, plus a carpenter’s time)

If the marks are on the trim around the door — the flat piece on the wall around the opening, usually two to three and a half inches wide — you can take it with you and hang it in the new house. It’s a real piece of the old house, in their handwriting, and it makes a good object on a wall.

Three things to know before you decide. First, trim is usually treated as a fixture, which means it goes with the house unless it’s excluded. Ask your agent before you list or before an offer, and ask about getting new casing up before closing. Second, have a carpenter or handyman do the work, and show them the marks first. Tell them the marked face can’t be scratched and you want the piece whole. Third, if the marks are on the door jamb — the part the door actually closes against — stop. That’s the door’s structure. Taking it means taking the door out and rebuilding the opening. Nobody’s buyer is going to be fine with that.

How to tell casing from jamb, and what to weigh before you take either: Thinking of taking the doorframe with the height marks?

Keeps: the real thing, their handwriting, the paint, all of it. Doesn’t keep: a tidy doorway or an easy move. You’ll pay for the carpenter, and it’s a seven-foot stick of painted pine you’ll have to store, transport, and find a wall for.

6. Cut out the section of wall ($50–$200 to patch, plus a contractor’s time)

If the marks are on drywall rather than trim, the equivalent is having that piece of wall cut out and the hole patched. It’s a bigger job than taking trim, and one for a drywall pro: the patch has to be invisible to your buyer, texture and all. The section you’re left with is a fragile slab of gypsum with paper on one face. People do frame them. Some regret it.

Keeps: the real thing. Doesn’t keep: the wall in the state your buyer expects, without real work.

7. Take the whole door (free if it’s yours to take, awkward)

Some families marked the door itself rather than the frame. Doors are the easiest of the physical options: a handyman can swap in a replacement door before closing, and the marked one comes with you. The old door becomes a headboard, a tabletop, a wall piece. There are a hundred upcycling projects for old doors and this is the one with a reason.

Keeps: everything, and it’s a useful object. Doesn’t keep: much room in the truck.

8. Leave it for the next family

This one is real and it’s not defeat. Some people paint around the marks and leave them, and some buyers are moved by it. If you’re selling to a young family and the marks are the kind that were written with care, a note on the fridge explaining them is a gift. You’ll never know what they did with it, and that’s the deal.

Do number 2 first anyway.

Keeps: the marks in the house, where they were made. Doesn’t keep: the marks with you.

Which one?

Method	Cost	Time	Keeps the handwriting	Accurate heights	Something for the new wall	Works on drywall
1. Life-size print	$79, shipping included	30 min + delivery	Yes	Yes, life size	Yes, and you keep marking	Yes
2. Photograph	Free	20 min	Yes (as a photo)	Yes, if you record them	No	Yes
3. Trace	Free	1 hr	No	Mostly	Yes	Yes
4. Ledger	Free	15 min	No	Yes	No	Yes
5. Take the casing	$20–100 for trim, plus a carpenter	A carpenter’s visit	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
6. Cut the wall	$50–200	Weekend	Yes	Yes	Yes (fragile)	Yes
7. Take the door	Cost of a door	Hour	Yes	Yes	Yes	—
8. Leave it	Free	—	For someone else	—	No	—

Most families end up with two of these: the photos and ledger for insurance, and one of the physical or printed options for the wall. If the marks are on casing and you want the real wood, have a carpenter take it. If they’re on drywall, or you’d rather not take trim off a house you’re trying to sell, print them.

Either way, go do number 2 right now. The moving truck doesn’t care how you felt about the doorframe.

Keep the growth chart, not the wall

Photograph the doorframe, tell us the height of two marks, and see your life-size canvas print before you order. $79, shipping included anywhere in the 50 states.

Make your print →