Baby Gates

citymama2012 · December 2012

Looking for recommendations for baby gates. We have a number of different places where I want to set them up so give your picks for best gate for:

Top/bottom of stairs

Wide openings

fire places

pressure mounting vs. screwing into the wall (I'd love to avoid the holes in the wall but what is more stable)

walk through or retractable

Metal banisters--in general how have you solved this? I have seen kits that allow you to fasten wood to the banister then attach the gate. We have wrought iron banister and I am concerned that these kits won't give a super secure place for the top of the stairs. Just curious how others are solving these issues.

ellewoodsSC · December 2012

I can make a suggestion on the stair gates, because we have a similar situation with a thin iron railing/banisters on one side and a wall on the other and I did quite a bit of research for a practical solution. You definitely need a hardware mounted gate at the top of the stairs because you can't take a chance on it dislodging if kids are hanging on or pushing against it. Plus you don't want to be trying to fuss with the tension and installation every time you need to get past carrying laundry, babies, etc. You also want to avoid a step-through gate at the top of the stairs as it's a tripping hazard.

We opted for the Cardinal Special Gate because it's lightweight and has all metal hardware and can be mounted at an angle. Our custom mounting took some planning and work, but we really like it so far.

https://www.amazon.com/Cardinal-Gates-Stairway-Special-White/dp/B002CGRT1S

Ours is mounted at an angle because you need to hit the studs for a secure installation and our studs were not located where the stairs actually begin. We mounted a 4x2 board to the wall studs and then attached the gate hardware to the board to lessen the angle.

We rigged up our own mounting on the metal spindles because the available kits were $35+ dollars and I wasn't even sure it would work on our thin, flat metal spindles.

Ours looks pretty much like this for the cost of a few dollars for wood and hardware and the fit ended up being solid:

https://www.amazon.com/Square-Clamp-Mounting-Cardinal-Gates/dp/B000F1MTYY

At the bottom we currently use a pressure mounted gate, but I really wish we could have just mounted something for convenience and piece of mind. Aesthetics aside, there are some fairly inexpensive plastic gates that also come with hardware mounts.