Baby gate for wrap-around staircase?

crescentmoon99

Anyone have a staircase that wraps around at the bottom?  If so, what did you do for a baby gate?  I have seen this on amazon.com, but holy **** is that expensive!!

We'd been putting it off, but Liam has just mastered climbing the stairs, so we need to get something up ASAP.  We had toyed with the idea of putting a regular gate up about 5 steps up where the wall connects, but now I realize my crazy kid would climb the 5 stairs, then pull up and cruise on the gate, inevitably falling to the hardwoods 5 stairs down.  So, we need something at the bottom.  I wonder if I could get one of those superyards, and rig something to connect it to the walls?  That would be so ugly though, and this is the first thing you'll see when you walk in our front door.

mrsmikey

Would a regular gate with an extension work?  Or one of those extra-wide gates?  IDK, we just got stair gates too, but our staircase is regular at the bottom.

raceyrae

We have the same situation with our stairs. ?My friend as en extra long gatee that she just puts through the rails (not mounted to a wall). ?It seems to work well -- it's long enough that it can fall back out of the rails. ?Otherwise, I may use or make using Evan's suggestion two gate installation kits to mount one at the bottom stair.

sms297

What makes it really hard is that you have nothing but railing to attach it to on one side, right? I am not sure that would be sturdy enough to hold up a gate if he started to pull on it. I think the superyard while ugly might be the best option. You could easily hide it when people were over. You could also use it as a superyard to contain him while you needed to get things done during the day.

mrsmikey

What about something like this?  Since it's fabric, it would be flexible enough to handle the weird angles of the staircase, and then rolls up when you're not using it. 

Baby gates are really expensive though, even the simple ones.  So I wouldn't be surprised at all if you're going to spend 100+ on one that's going to work for your stairs.  The one we got was $60, and it was nothing special.

mrsmikey

Oh, and they make kits to attach any gate to the railing/banisters.  Or you can rig one yourself like Evans did.

crescentmoon99

Yeah our stairs are a huge pain!  Nothing but railing on one side.  Even at the top we had trouble because the wall is angled away up there too.  Clearly they were not designed for baby gates LOL.  I think we'd need to attach the superyard to the wall somehow, because he could move that out of the way.  He stands at the top and rattles that one so hard I'm sometimes afraid it will give!

sms297

Is there any way to keep him out of the front hall all together? Could you do a gate in your living room like the one that Mikey suggested and then another one going into your kitchen/family room?

crescentmoon99

sms297:

Is there any way to keep him out of the front hall all together? Could you do a gate in your living room like the one that Mikey suggested and then another one going into your kitchen/family room?

No easy way.  The entire side of our front play room is open to the hallway, so we'd have to gate off like 10+ feet of open area, plus the hallway into the kitchen.  Although if we did, that would serve the added bonus of keeping Lacy from barking at the front door hehe