The Great Gate Saga

Since my son has been walking for several months you'd think we'd have the house 100% baby proofed by now. WRONG. Yeah, yeah. I know. Bad parenting. Fifty lashes with the wet noodle for us.

Anyway, after having a heart attack every time my sone ran out of his room or ours I decided that was it and to take the installation of the gate at the top of the stairs into my own hands. No big deal, right? I had the time at home, why not try installing it? The other ones only took an hour. Surely I could handle it.

HA! Little did I know it would take 2 days, a total of 4 hours, 1 cut, 1 trip to Toys R Us and 2 different gates in order to get it done. Everything that possibily could go wrong, did.

The holes drilled into the sheet rock revealed the stud was too deep in the wall for the screws to drive into. The wall anchors I decided to use to remedy that were too long and bent while being nailed in so I had to cut length off the anchors. After the brackets were finally attached to the wall and the gate attached to the bracket a major problem was revealed in trying to install the locking mechanism on the banister. I needed 2 inches above the gate to install the lock and didn't have it. Thinking I could rig something, I fiddled for close to a 1/2 hour for a solution only to have one bracket rip from the wall, wall anchors and everything and go tumbling down the stairs. In the process it somehow made the gate take a chunk out of my thumb. So much for that gate install.

Off to Toys R Us I went. There had to be a gate easier to install. Found it and decided to tackle it the next day. I wasn't having any more of this after 2 1/2 hours already!

Attempt #2 went much better but it wasn't a breeze. New holes had to be drilled and of course, the stud in the wall isn't plumb so one set of holes went into the studs while the others didn't. Had to re-drill one set of holes. At least that was the only issue and that gate went up in less than an hour.

Eureaka!!! Finally!!! Done!!!

Maybe there was a reason we hadn't installed the gate before now. Maybe some higher power or force was telling us "you don't want to bother since it'll be more than a hassle"? Who knows.

At least I've decovered I'm a DIY Diva. I think I need my own toolbelt now. Oh, and I AM NOT installing the next gate by myself!!!