Custom National Park Welcome Sign

Custom National Park Welcome Sign

A personalized National Park style sign, laser cut from Baltic birch and assembled by hand in our shop in California. Your family name, your icon, your stain. Every piece is cut separately and glued on by hand, so the border, the lettering and the arrowhead all stand proud of the background.

About this Park sign

The raised border around the outside. It is what gives it the National Park Service look, and it is the one thing that separates this from our National Forest sign, which uses the same arrowhead shape with a clean edge.

If you are undecided, the border reads as more formal and more official. The Forest version reads a little more modern.

Your text

Three lines, all yours.

The top line is the greeting. It reads Welcome to our Adventure by default, and you can change it to anything. The most requested alternatives:

• Welcome to
• Welcome to our Camp
• Welcome to our Cabin
• Welcome to our Home
• Welcome to our Happy Place

Below that goes your family name. Below that, optionally, an est. year: a wedding, an anniversary, the year you bought the place, or whatever the milestone was.

Choose your icon

Twenty-four to choose from.

Wildlife: Bear, Bison, Deer, Wolf, Eagle, Lion, Elephant, Giraffe, Flamingo, Dolphin, Turtle, Snake, Snail, Butterfly, Finch

Farm and pets: Dog, Cat, Horse, Chicken, Pig, Rabbit

Camp: Campfire, Tent, Sasquatch

Or send us your own. Your dog rather than a generic one. Your boat. A mountain you climbed. A state outline. Your business logo. Simple silhouettes cut cleanly and look best, and if your image is too detailed to cut we can engrave it instead. Send what you have and we will tell you which will look better before anything is made.

Stain colors

Western Oak, Aged Walnut, Dark Walnut, Weathered Gray, Navy and Ebony.

Background and foreground are chosen separately, so you can go high contrast with pale lettering on Ebony, or keep it soft and tonal.

Sizes

• 18″ x 11″ for a small entry, a hallway, or a gift
• 23″ x 15″ our most popular, and the right size for most porches and entryways
• 34″ x 22″ for a gate, a barn wall, a garage, or anywhere it needs to be read from a distance

Hanging it

Every sign ships with a metal sawtooth hanger, a wood screw and a drywall anchor. The hanger comes uninstalled so you can position it exactly where you want on the back, and fitting it takes a Phillips screwdriver and about a minute.

Mounting on a post or a fence? Choose either “No Hanger” or “Metal Sawtooth Hanger” and mount it with screws, wood glue or construction adhesive. The screw and anchor are included either way.

Want a different hanging method entirely? Tell us and we will do our best to accommodate it.

Displaying it outdoors

The Exterior Finish option is the one to look at. It is a hand-sprayed spar urethane, one thick coat on both sides, and it is what stands between the wood and the weather. Two coats are available on request. It will slightly darken the stain as it soaks into the grain, though it will not affect painted colors.

We would rather tell you this up front than have you find out later. No wood finish lasts forever. Sun and rain are hard on any wooden sign, and one hanging in full exposure will need re-coating every year or two to keep looking new. That is normal for real wood and it is a fifteen minute job.

One thing matters more than anything we can do in the shop: shade. A sign under a porch roof, an eave, or on a north-facing wall will outlast one in open sun by years rather than months. A sheltered spot would work better than an exposed one in the long run.

When it is time to re-coat, we recommend an exterior spar urethane. Clean it, let it dry, then spray a new coat.

Hanging it indoors? There is no need for the finish at all.

A gift that lands

These do well for a housewarming on a cabin or a first home, for a wedding or anniversary with the est. date on it, for a retirement to somewhere with trees, or for the person whose entire personality is camping.

If you are buying for someone else, the icon is where you make it personal. Their dog. Their horse. The animal they will not stop talking about.

How ordering works

1. Choose your size, stains, icon and text.
2. We send you a digital proof showing your exact wording on your chosen stain at your chosen size.
3. You approve it, or ask for changes. Revisions are free and there is no limit on them.
4. Only then does anything go on the laser.

Not ready to order? Request a free proof and see it first. There is no obligation.

A note on the wood

This is natural birch, so expect small variations in grain and tone from piece to piece. Two signs in the same stain will never be quite identical.

If you are unhappy with your sign when it arrives, contact us and we will make it right.