Whew! It's been a busy week at our house. The holiday weekend came and went in a hurry and my sweet, not so little, baby boy has started crawling ALL over the house. Which means I have to revamp the baby safety for the fourth time!
Because I have a lovely open floor plan (and didn't want to spend hundreds of dollars on gates) I have struggled to find the right safety gates for our house. Consequently, I have been making do with the ones we purchased three kids and two houses ago. As the boys have grown I have moved them around the house, as needed, to protect them (or my stuff) from potential harm.
Once more, I have a toddler and a new crawler that need denied access into certain areas, but this time around I have older boys that need to be able to get into the kitchen or their bathroom without too much hassle. I went to search the leftovers in the craft room to find something to solve my predicament and I saw the stack of shutters I removed from the kitchen windows when we moved in four years ago. They have been looking for a new home for a while and could never find the right spot and I hoped this time they would finally find their perfect place.
As I set off to find the best (i.e. easiest/fastest/cheapest) way to re-purpose them into a gate. I discovered if I flipped the hinges around I could just screw them together and they would fold out of the way when not needed. This was a huge plus, as tripping over, or stubbing a toe on, a gate threshold is terribly frustrating (and painful!) I was so excited that this plan was coming along flawlessly and in great time! I went to get some screws and my drill and disappointment quickly set in when all the screws where the wrong size and the battery was dead in my drill! With a heavy sigh, I had to pause my project until I charged up the battery and bought some screws… After the slight delay I was able to get back to it yesterday. I screwed the pieces together and mounted it to the cabinets and it works great! I still need to get a better latch, as I am sure my clever, soon to be, two year old will figure out the simple latch very quickly but these shutters work great for this space.
I would not recommend this basic construction for the top of the stairs, but just to block an entrance this works very well. And it is something my older boys can operate without any problems. 
I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday weekend! Enjoy these last few weeks of summer!
Until Next Time,
Sonja
It's perfect! What a fun idea!
ReplyDeleteThanks! I'm really pleased with it so far.
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