Lindam Extending Wooden Safety Gate - A Review!

We live in a Victorian terrace conversion. It’s beautiful but oddly shaped and our stair case is a bit tricky in lots of ways. It’s narrow and steep then at the top there is a small landing before one step up which leads to the bathroom, kitchen and our bedroom then round the other side another little trio of steps leads to the children’s bedroom and our living room. It’s fine but it does mean we have a few stair gates dotted about and that narrows the walk ways even further, or feels like it does. I remember removing all the stair gates when Florence could cope without them and everywhere just felt so much bigger.

Stairs — Our difficult stairs from both sides of the small landing!

We’d just got used to not having them when Jimmy started crawling at 6 months and they all needed to go back up again. The one on the kitchen (which had stayed) was fine but the two for the stair ways, while doing a great job, really get in my way! I find them such a pain so I decided to only put one at the top of the stairs on the landing by the living room this time. I just couldn’t face having the second one on the top of the other landing by the bathroom too; all that in and out and locking… It’s meant that Jimmy can’t crawl and walk freely through that part of the house which is annoying but less annoying than the gate – don’t get me wrong, they do a good job but it’s a bit like an obstacle course when we have them all up.

I’ve been longing to get rid of the one we do have too but obviously Jimmy is so tiny and the big stair case is very steep so there’s no way we can do that, especially now as he has become very keen on climbing and stairs in general. What we really needed was a gate at the top of the main stair case but the gap is so narrow I didn’t think we would find one. Also, for the time Jimmy couldn’t cope with the little steps up to each landing it would have meant THREE stair gates instead of two for the stairs…

6 months on from when he first started moving and he is fully competent on the little stairs now. He turns himself around and goes down backwards just like Florence did and he would love to be up and down them all the time given half a chance. Of course the big narrow stair case is just next door though so I couldn’t risk that without a stair gate that fit the narrow area at the top of our stairs. I thought if we could find something suitable for there then Jimmy could happily have the run of the house and even be able to climb the little stairs whenever he liked! It was about finding the right one though.

For this area the stair gate couldn’t really be a pressure fit gate which is our preferred method so as not to damage walls or whatever. There are two reasons for this. Firstly the gate would be affixed to the banister rather than the wall at one side and I would worry that it would be easier to pop out than when attached to a wall if only attached via pressure. Secondly, our banister isn’t perfectly straight on the edges so it would be difficult to attach it with pressure fittings. Jonny hasn’t been keen on drilling holes in it but we both decided that all in all, having one there would be SO much easier than what we have at the moment so we bit the bullet found one suitable, the Lindam Extending Wooden Safety Gate.

Lindam Extending Safety Gate — Jonny tells me it wasn’t hard to fit, one side overlaps the other and this is how you determine how wide it is! You need an electric drill and to be prepared to make holes in walls, for us we decided this was fine. Pressure fit gates have served us well in the past but for the top of the stairs we just needed this gate and it’s fab!

Our stair gates have always been Lindam and I’ve always been very pleased with how they work. This one is more attractive than most because its made with natural hard wood and just comes across as much less cumbersome! As I said, it’s extending, and it actually can fit spaces much larger than ordinary doorways (up to 106cm) but what’s perfect for us is that it fits spaces as small as 63.5cm too! That’s over 10cm slimmer than Lindam’s ordinary stair gates narrowest point and great for our little 65cm area!

We’re yet again pleased with a new Lindam Stair gate and finally the house doesn’t look too much like an obstacle course! Jimmy is LovIng the freedom and I am loving the fact that because we only need to open that gate when we go outside, it means I’m not jumping up and down worrying the stair gate isn’t shut!

If you have a smaller or indeed larger space then this gate is fab! It’s very easy to use and install!

For more information on the Lindam Extending Wooden Safety Gate and other Lindam product please see their website www.lindam.com.

I have not been paid to write this post but I was sent a Lindam Extending Wooden Saftey Gate for the purpose of review.