If you are anything like me, when building your home haunt one of the first things you added was a cemetery. I have made or purchased a number of tombstones over the years and all of them have a common problem. There isn't really a good way to anchor them to the ground. Where I live in the foothills of Washington State, we get a ton of wind and rain which makes anchoring them more difficult and more important. I have put little steaks into the base of the tombstones before but that just eats up the foam that typically the stones are made of and again in a windy area, this really does no good. This year, I'm trying something a bit more substantial and as it turns out, was fairly easy to do.

Step 1: Measure Twice, Cut Once!

As in any project, proper measuring will save you time and headaches! For this project, I am using standard 2x6x8 lumber for the base and 1x2x8 for the trim. An 8' 2x6 will give you 4 24" bases for fairly standard tombstones.

First measure the base of your tombstone. The tombstone in the photo measured 12" x 1 1/2". You will need the anchor base to be at least the length of your tombstone + 2" for trim + 6" for looks. Since the tombstones I was working with today were fairly uniform in size, I simply cut the board into 4 equal 24" lengths.

Next cut the trim pieces. Cut two that are the width of the tombstone (1 1/2" in this case) and two that are the length of the tombstone + 2" for the two end pieces (12" + 2" = 14" in this example).

Step 2: Assembly

Nail together the trim pieces to form a little box that will hold the base of your tombstone. Place the assembled box onto the base and center it. At this point I tacked the two together with a nail just to hold them in place. One could glue them or have some other way to keep them together as you need to flip them over and nail them together for good. After they are nailed together, drill two holes in the base as shown for steaks to go through. These should be as close to the diameter of the spikes/nails that you use.

Step 3: Installation and Use

I purchased 2 8" galvanized nails for each of the anchor bases. Place these in the pre-drilled holes and hammer them into the ground where the tombstone will go. Gently place your tombstone into the base (if you did it right, it should be slightly snug, not loose.)

One can paint the base to match or accent your tombstones with an outdoor paint. One should also note on the bottom of the base which tombstone it goes to as they will all be custom built.

These were for tombstones that I made myself. I have made several others for tombstones that were commercially made.

This is my first Instructable so I hope you like it! I'm working on another cemetery project which I will post soon!

Happy Haunting! Happy Halloween