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The moment Hart started crawling, I started researching baby gates. I didn’t like what I found.
The staircase in our house is visible the moment you walk through our front door. It’s directly to the left of our beautiful Frame TV, meaning we look at it a whole lot. I couldn’t have an eyesore baby gate there. I just couldn’t!
So, I dreamed up my own design and my handy husband made it a reality for me. It was a LOT of work to get this gate made – from it’s completely screw-less construction (36 mortises people – 36!) to what seemed like endless edges to smooth and route to the latch we had to track down – this one is NOT for the faint of heart. But if you’re dedicated to keeping your home beautiful and your baby safe like I am, trudge ahead and learn the in’s and out’s of making these baby gates for yourself!
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I can’t tell you how important this part is. I can give you the dimensions for which we made our gate, but they were specific to our staircase opening – 40.5” wide. Most standard baby gates are 28”-30” high, so we went with 29”. You want to space the inner rectangles close enough together that your baby can’t squeeze through, and make sure they are evenly spaced in the area YOU are working with. Our spacing between the 2” pieces of wood was 3”. The inner rectangles were 20” by 6”. Once you have your measurements set, you can start cutting down your poplar wood with a miter saw for each piece and size you need.
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- 2” poplar wood strips (enough material for the measurements of your space)
- Wood Glue
- Vice
- Miter Saw
- Dovetail or dotsuki saw
- Mortise chisel
- Standard Chisel
- Mallat
- Palm router with rounded bit
- Belt sander with low grit and high grit belts (any sander will work, it will just be more work!)
- Caulking (for trim) and caulking gun
- Paint (acrylic for trim recommended), drop cloth and paint sprayer or smooth finish paint brush / rollers
- Standard measuring tools and levels (a square like this is super helpful)
- Soft close hinges
- Security Latch
- Drill, screws and anchors
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We’re talking about BABIES here! The last thing you need is a bunch of screws holding everything together, just waiting to wriggle out and poke your baby (or end up in his mouth….). So, to put together the MANY pieces of wood strips into rectangles, my husband had the genius idea to make mortises instead. Don’t know what a mortise is? Don’t worry, I didn’t either. Ahem; Mortise, noun. A hole or recess cut into a part which is designed to receive a corresponding projection (a tenon) on another part so as to join or lock the parts together. So basically, to construct this gate, my husband carved 36 holes on 2” poplar wood with a mortise chisel and then created 36 tenon pieces with a dotsuki saw so all of the pieces of the gate could fit and lock together. This took time, a vice (to hold those little pieces of wood steady while he was chiseling and sawing away!) and very careful measurements (each mortise was only .8cm x 3cm!) Like I said, this project is not for the faint of heart! After all the mortises and tenon pieces were created for the inner rectangles, he fit them together with wood glue. Trust me when I say they aren’t budging!
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Again. We are talking about BABIES. No splinters or nasty cuts are welcome here. After all of the inner rectangle pieces were fitted together and secure, every single edge had to be rounded with a palm router. Every single surface was sanded down with a belt sander, first with a high grit and then with a low grit. These things were smooth, I tell ya. And the smoother the better! The frame of the gate was constructed the same way as the inner rectangles, with mortises along the top and bottom. This had to be smoothed as well, and then all of the smoothed inner rectangles were fit into the frame’s mortises with more wood glue.
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Take your time caulking around every single seam on every single piece of this gate. Trust me. The better you caulk, the better the final product will look once it’s painted! The intricate detail on this gate makes it a pain to paint. My recommendation would be to hang it and use a paint sprayer with acrylic trim paint, spraying many light coats on from afar to avoid drips. If you’re tight on space, don’t have a sprayer or are seasonally unable to hang your gate outdoors, I feel you. We sprayed ours horizontally and flipped it from side to side in between coats drying. This was NOT ideal, because it allowed for drips to fall down in the inner rectangles. If this happens to you, just get a fine grit sanding wedge and buff out the drips before one careful last coat. Make sure you’re using paint brushes and rollers for trim / cabinets for a smooth finish.
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Again – this one depends on the dimensions of your space. We were able to screw soft-close-cabinet hinges directly into the side of the staircase and fix them to the baby gate. Regardless of your space, you’re going to want to create a way for the latch system to work, which means you need to mount something to your wall for it to fit to. We kind of improvised on this one, screwing the one piece of wood to the wall, the security latch to the wood and then a second piece of wood fit over that to create a stopper for the gate to hit when it closed. It’s hard to understand without seeing how the latch works in real life, but it sort of squeezes the gate to that wood stopper like a vice. And by the way – the way that thing opens is tricky. It’s not marketed as a baby latch, but it definitely could be!
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- Follow Craven_Haven on instagram and check out the saved highlights reel for DIY Baby Gates for more visuals, explanations and videos!
- Create a diagram with measurements for every piece you will need to cut prior to starting. Label your diagram (Piece A, Piece B, etc) and label the corresponding pieces of wood as you cut them to size and start creating mortises and tenon pieces. This will help you stay organized and ensure you have all of the pieces you need.
- Cut, measure and lay out your pieces before you start making mortises and tenon pieces.That way, if you notice something off with one of the inner rectangles or your spacing, etc you can fix it before any real damage is done or time is spent. This was trial and error for us, and we ended up having to redo an inner rectangle. My husband also made a mistake in the measurement for the distance between the inner rectangles and the sides of the frame until the very end, so you will notice a little more space on the sides on the final product as compared to the original design.
- It is really hard to chisel such little wood strips. Go slow when making your mortises and allow yourself extra wood for mistakes – you will need it!
- Make sure your hinges are narrow enough for your wood! We didn’t really fit them up against the wood until we were installing the gate, and it was too late to do anything about it! They are visible from the front and too wide to get 2 rows of screws in – they definitely need to be replaced.
- If your budget allows, buy pre-milled wood. This will ensure your strips are super flat and will save you time sanding and leveling!
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