NewlyWoodwards

an unconventional home

Building a better baby gate

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If you are like me, you visit Pinterest regularly. You pin away. And then the pins stay in those boards forever.
Never to be seen or heard from again.
That’s what lead me to this project – the Pinterest-inspired project I’m is a “better baby gate” – DIY-style and perfectly coordinated with our home.
Doesn’t Henry look thrilled about the gate? He’s relatively annoyed I’m containing him. Brother wants to do what brother wants to do.
This project was truly born out of necessity.
Baby-proofing is something I kind of hate. Our home is not at all kid-friendly. There are slick wooden floors and stairs, a fireplace, tons of electrical outlets, built-ins, corners of woodwork and cords. Lots of cords.
But, with Henry becoming mobile came the need to begin making things a bit safer. Step one was a baby gate at the top of the stairs.
It became painfully obvious that we needed it when I turned around for approximately 30 seconds to head to the bathroom and he had scooted himself ALMOST TO THE EDGE OF THE STAIRCASE. I had no idea he could move. After nearly going into cardiac arrest and breaking into tears, operation baby gate commenced. We started with a metal gate from a hardware store that we received as a Christmas gift. Ryan opened it and began installing when he declared it was the most horrible piece of crap he’d ever seen in his life.
So, back to the drawing board. Ryan had actually built a simple gate at our last house back in 2009 to keep the dogs from going upstairs. So, we had a little experience. But, we wanted this one to be a lot lighter than that one. Plus, our staircase is quite a bit more traditional than the last house. I wanted it to blend with the feel of the house and staircase.

I did some quick searching on Pinterest and found lots of lots of great inspiration.

So, off to Menards we went. Ryan decided to go with pine 1x4s and used the largest available dowel rods (3/4 inch) for the railings. I like the clean look this combination created. And using the dowels made it much lighter and also much less expensive. (The dowels are still very sturdy, in case you were curious.)

For added stability, Ryan mounted it to the wall on an additional 1×4 that was screwed into the studs. He used two piano hinges that made it really smooth to open and close, and it also holds up the gate nicely. No sagging at all. We decided on a simple bolt closure, which is easy for Ryan and I to maneuver one-handed but gives a sturdy lock for Henry.

I’m really pleased with how gate blends with all the woodwork in the stairway. It doesn’t scream, “I’m a plastic piece of baby junk.” Which I consider a win.

Now Henry has plenty of safe space to play. This has become his area to hang out when I’m getting ready in the morning.

So, that’s our better baby gate. I think it’s a huge improvement over anything available at the big box stores. Don’t you?

 

Have you used Pinterest to find project inspiration?

Filed Under: DIY

Comments

  4. What an awesome idea! I never even considered making a baby gate. We have funky sized stairs too, this would be great!

  7. you should have shown step by step pictures. how do we know you really did what you said

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  9. It’s definitely better than any store bought ones I’ve seen. Well done!! (Your little guy is so gorgeous too)

  10. This is awesome! Looks like you did a fabulous job! Now I’m off to look through your archives. 🙂

  11. That’s great. We didn’t really have to do any baby proofing with our girl. I just told her no and she listened, but that’s her personality. My new guy is only 5 months old but I can already tell he’ll be Mr. Trouble so now I’m going to have to start thinking about things like this!

  12. Love this idea Kim! I totally would have never thought of this. You did a fantastic job!! Henry is a cutie pie :).

  13. I also love how it blends perfectly with the stairs and isn’t all cheapy baby gate! good job!!

  15. This is awesome, Kim! I wish we would have thought of this. Instead, we bought an extra-wide montrosity for our upstairs that we even had to jerry-rig to fit under our baniser. UGH. I may have to embelish it now that you’ve inspired me!

  16. Love this! We spent a large amount of money buying a gate that could be mounted at an angle because our stiarcase is weird. Who would have thought we could actually build one? The Woodwards of course! I obviously need to step up my pinning.

  18. OMG!! Love, love, love!! Of course you would make a stylish, architecturally (is that a real word?!) cool baby gate!! Awesome job and that picture of Henry? WHAT. A. DOLL. 🙂

  19. LOVE this! So wish I had seen this last week! We just installed a baby gate at the top of our stairs. It was expensive and does not go with our floors or trim. Boo. 🙁 Maybe I’ll paint it…

  20. Your baby gate looks great! Love that it ties in so seamlessly! That Henry is too cute!

    And Sherry commented on your project! You’re hitting the big time now too! haha

  22. That little Henry! He is just too cute! This is a great idea… Our new place has a set of stairs we will need to worry about – so I’m tucking this one away. 🙂

  23. I love this, and you know I love your stairs, so I’m glad you put up a pretty baby gate. And as always, I’m endlessly impressed with Ryan’s handiwork.

    I would tackle this myself, but my kids wait to crawl until they can pretty much dress themselves and go to kindergarten. So the plastic will do for the one month we need it.

  24. Very nice non plastic piece of baby junk. Your model is adorable. And I’m lovin’ the text on the photo. Way to step up your game.

  26. My God, it is fantastic! Can you please come over to my house and build one for us? We’re using one that IS a piece of crap and we can’t find one that will work well at the bottom of our stairs. ARGH. Please? 🙂

  29. Kim, I love love it! Such good thinking and it looks good 🙂 I also love the landing picture on your staircase.

    Have you shared that before on the blog? If not I want to see more pics of this cute space!

  31. Wow! Great job! We never had a baby gate for Ramona, but we don’t have stairs. I always struggle with the one they have at her school. Makes me look like an idiot twice a week! I’ll have to keep this in my back pocket in case I buy a house with stairs!

  32. So awesome!! Nice work Ryan. Can he please come to my house and build me one too?? Also can he bring your entire staircase with him because it is awesome. And you and Henry should come along too and play with B! 🙂

  33. First things first, can we discuss how amazing how staircase is? So beautiful. I love it.

    And the gate looks perfect! Blends in so nicely. I wish Jeff were better at this sort of thing . . . he has NO interest in woodwork, and if I forced him to do it, I KNOW in my heart there would be duct tape and gum included in the final product. I suppose I could try and learn instead of whining about it but . . . meh. Awesome work, I LOVE it. (Also, I remember Forrest doing the exact same thing as Henry–I didn’t even know he could move at all yet, and I was getting ready in the bathroom and peeked out to see him where I’d left him in the hall, and he had army crawled backwards like 10 feet into the bedroom. But at least he didn’t choose the other direction–toward the stairs. Crazy kids!)

  38. Baby Gate is on my cons portion of my “To Have Kids or Not” list. I think I can scratch that off after this post. (And seeing it in person.)

    And you’re the best. That is all.

  40. “Mom, this is crap. Dont you realize I have places to go, people to see?” That is what is face is saying to me. LOL

    I think this gate looks WAY better than what you would ever buy at the store

  42. This looks great!! Our house is not baby proof either – not that we’re ready for that step quite yet, but we bought a baby gate to contain our new pup downstairs for the time being. We may have to graduate to this beautiful piece of work in the future – *pinned*