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Banister in the way of safety gate

Beth.1212Beth.1212 member
edited March 2014 in Toddlers: 12 - 24 Months
Our stairs have railings on both sides at the bottom. One ends in a newel post, and the other is a banister attached to the wall. 

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We have a safety gate that we can attach to the newel post on one side and the wall at the other. When we went to set it up, we realized that the wall banister extends beyond the stairs. We can't attach the gate to the wall because the banister is between the gate and the wall. Does that make sense? Here's another pic using a pressure mounted gate just to illustrate how far the banister extends. (I wouldn't use a pressure mounted gate on the stairs, of course.) 

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Any suggestions on how to mount a gate at the bottom of our stairs? 
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Re: Banister in the way of safety gate

  • mommaoftripsmommaoftrips member
    Would it be possible to cut the hand rails back to equal the distance of the banister?
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  • mommaoftripsmommaoftrips member
    Or get a piece of wood that could act as a wedge that you can nail into the wall (same depth as the hand rail) so that you can mount onto this?
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  • laurelita42laurelita42 member
    We have a similar staircase with the same problem on the landing. My husband put a huge wood block (about 4 inches thick and the length of the floor to almost the top of the bannister) and attached it to the front of the newel post. He used 3 of those industrial zip-ties to hold it. The gate goes in between the extended post and the wall and fits well. The thing is rock solid- I've pulled on it like crazy to check- but I still keep a wary eye on it and don't let DD pull on it or play near it. We have a 'normally' mounted gate that keeps her away from our hall/staircase anyway, but I feel a lot better having the 2nd gate up as another line of defense.
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  • minervacullenminervacullen member
    I saw a photo of the zip tied wood on Pinterest. Apparently it's a common issue.


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  • KatFCoKatFCo member

    Can you remove one of the bannisters?

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  • Beth.1212Beth.1212 member
    Interesting ideas. Thanks for the food for thought!
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  • vvvvvfeevvvvvfee member
    we have this gate and love it (we have have a weird setup at the top of our staircase). since it pivots in two places (take a look at the pictures to see what i mean), it looks like you could mount one end to the post and the other end to the wall (although you may still need to do the zip-tie-a-board-to-the-post thing).
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  • DawnLillyDawnLilly member
    I'm going to make one of these. Would something like this work? I would think to put it on full circular hinges on the post so that you could swing it flush on the outside of the banister out of the way and have the latch on the wall.
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  • AimeeL85AimeeL85 member
    A simple option, depending on how old your LO is and how much you think they'll try to get past it, is to slide a gate between that wooden post at the bottom and the first white spindle. Slide it in from the slide and have it be wide enough that the post/spindle side holds it up, does that make sense? If LO really pulled at it or pushed it to the side they might get past, but sometimes just seeing it there is enough of a deterrent. I wouldn't do that at the top of a staircase, but at the bottom should be ok. You may or may not need a wider gate than what you've got there.
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  • Beth.1212Beth.1212 member
    Thanks guys! There are a lot of interesting ideas here. I knew I could count on you to get the creative juices flowing :) DH and I have been poking around and chatting and we think that we're going to get an accessory kit that is basically a formalized version of the zip-tie-wood-to-the-newel-post suggestion. This will allow us to (1) avoid putting holes in the newel post and (2) allow us to attach the gate to the front of the newel post so that the bottom of it is on the floor, not the first step. Then as mommaoftrips suggested, DH is going to use a piece of wood to act as a wedge that we can put along the wall (same depth as the hand rail) to make it so that we can mount to the other side, too. We are thinking of going with the dreambaby gate, which is a fully retractable screen-type gate that will not leave anything for me to trip over. 
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