It's almost time for us to put up safety gates and I read that the only kind you should use at the top of the stairs is one that installs with hardware. Unfortunately we are going to have to install the gate into a wood banister on one side. I was hoping if anyone had to install into wood they could recommend a particular gate that does the least amount of damage to the wood? Or do you have any other solutions for installing the gate? Thanks!
H.-
We have a wood banister and a wall. We used the Baby First safety gates- they have extensions and a rubber pad on the ends. We did not drill into the wood- it tightens pretty well and we kept an eye on the kids when they were upstairs. I am actually selling them both at this time- as my kids are old enough now. Email me if you might be interested.
My Mom had the same issues with her house. She didn't want to drill into the wood and didn't wan't a pressure gate b/c she didn't think they were that safe at the top of stairs. Anyway, she bought this special attachment for a gate. It was expensive and a total pain to install but works great. It is made by Kidco and here is some info
Stairway Gate Installation Kit Model K12
NO DRILLING! Finally a gate mounting kit that doesn't require drilling into staircase woodwork! This kit includes the materials necessary to install a gate to stairway banisters without drilling into the wood.
The other ladies had a lot of great ideas. What worked for us (after a few failed attempts at installing/rigging things on our own) was having someone from Arizona Childproofers come out and install a removable, non-intrusive gate at the top of the stairs. It wasn't that expensive at the time (4 years ago) and we knew it was safe and secure. Here's there information if you're interested in checking them out: ###-###-#### or www.azchildproofers.com. We were really impressed by them and would have used them again if our new home wasn't one story!
Just a tip: they make the same gates for babies that they do for pets and they are just as safe and clean, but are much less expensive.
My husband and I have a rod iron banister and what we did so we did not have to drill into the iron was to stap long piece of wood to the banister and drill into the piece of wood and not our iron. we used zip ties to clap onto the banister.
One Step Ahead (a baby catalog) sells a product to help you attach gates to banisters without drilling. Check it out on the web!
We have on installed into a wood banister, it is the Eddie Bauer one, we got it at babies r us. It costs a little more but way sturdy and looks nicer. My dog would jump over it so we just bought L bracets to reinforce to corners on the gate door. If you want to see pics, just let me know and I can email them to you.
I used the KidCo Configure Gate at the top of my stairs. I didn't want to drill into the bannister wood, so we used zip ties from Home Depot. Works great. My 14 months old pulls on it and it doesn't move. We have a wall on one side so we hardware mounted it on one side, zip ties on the other. Check it out. You can buy it on onestepahead for the best price.
