Help! Just dug out my old stairgate and it won't work in my new house!

[Aranea]

We've got a Victorian house and our pressure-mounted stairgate won't work. The wall at the top of the stairs has a curve in it, and the newel post at the top of the banisters is round, so I can't see how a stairgate is going to fit!

Does anyone have any clever suggestions for an awkward spot? I would really like to prevent dd2 from falling down the stairs.

bump?

pressure mounted ones aren't that great

buy a normal screw fixed one - if necessary you can screw a flat piece of wood to the round bannister to ensure an easier fit

or get two planks of wood either side and get them screwed onto the wall and the banister post, then you'll have a flat surface to fix gate onto, but it won't look very good....

thank you both. That sounds like it would work. though it does also sound like it would look pretty awful... any other thoughts out there?

We screwed one into rounded newel post and added pressure and position fixing with a couple of zip ties. Working OK so far.

that's good to know BikeRunSki. So if I can just solve my curved wall problem, I'm sorted.

We couldn't fix a stairgate on the staircase so instead fixed it in the recess of ds's bedroom. Didn't have one at the bottom of the stairs for the same reason but was just vigilant instead - could have fixed on on a door recess leading to the hall if we'd had to. I was more concerned with ds coming out of his room at night and falling down the stairs.

Dd2 is only just crawling, so she'd better not be going anywhere at night!

She potters round after me like a puppy but I don't want to count on my vigilance, especially if I need to dash off and do something for dd1 or whatever. I really hope we can fix something up.