Safety gates

[Hawest1]

I have had safety gates on since day dot with both boys (now age 3 & 1&half)
Both boys now handle brilliantly with stairs, walk up carefully & bump down (3yr old started it again after teaching his brother) I know it is a bit early to take them away all together for the sake of ds2 but my question is what age were your kids when u removed the stair gates & how did u do it?

The boys room is up stairs & it seems they aren't getting much use out of it & the toys in it (& my livingroom is starting to look like a toy shop because of this) i just feel it would be nice is sometime soon they would be able to play in their bedroom without me having to open & shut gates every 5mins. But obviously want them to be safe?