DIY Picket Fence Inspired Baby Gate

Welcome back friends. We have way more gates in our house than any normal house should have. But this house wasn’t built for children. We have had one of those “cheapy” gates from Walmart or Target up on the doorway going from the kitchen into our laundry room/stairway to the basement. I worked so hard painting and patching up walls in our kitchen and this gate just abused the wall!! Plus, people can’t figure out how to use our bent gate. So it was overdue to get up a new one.

Anyways, I had a pile of wood we found in the rafters of our old house. It looked as though it maybe was from an old fence. The wood was very dry and old as well. But I knew it would be perfect for a gate!! Inspired by the picket fence idea, this wood was already cut this way. I can’t see why someone couldn’t use brand new wood and cut the slants in them for this same look.

Here’s how I made it…

Here’s the wood I started out with. It was a little long, so I cut the ends to the size I wanted.

Sanded it down like crazy, because I will have a baby touching it. No slivers needed.

Yucky!!

I had to measure the doorway and the extra piece of wood to attach the latch. The walls don’t match up, so I am adding another piece of wood to be able to attach the latch onto something. That’s what the brand new piece is for.

I measured the spacing to make sure I would have enough room for the latch to close properly, plus space so the door can open and close without rubbing the other piece of wood. Then I measured to make sure the spacing was even.

I figured out where I wanted the back pieces to go.

Added some glue, then used my air nailer to attach.

This is it so far. Put together and ready for stain.

How cool right?

So this stain went on a lot darker than I had wanted. The wood was so dry that it sucked it up with no return!! I did “distress” and sand down the edges some. Added two coats of brush on poly to both sides and we are ready to install.

Here’s the before on this sad-looking gate. Pretty ugly too..

I had to patch up the wall, sand it down, and reapply paint the night before.

Poor wall, didn’t have a chance.

I had to figure out where the stud was on the wall and I pocket hole screwed this in from the back side.

This wall, there was a stud on the edge (which there usually is ;)). I used the 1″ screws that came with the hinges, but being I have 3 kids, I wanted to add a 2″ screw to the top and bottom hinge to attach to the wall for extra support. I will have to go back and dab some white paint on these to blend them in.