I asked my husband if he would please put up our baby gate brackets today. They are going to be on the walls at "this" end of the ladder. He agreed. Then I got this hairbrained idea to paint the stairwell to match the living room before he put them up. The gate is essential to my sanity. Not only is my grandson coming later this month (and he is in the toddler/just learning to walk phase), but I can't relax when we have company with toddlers because I am sure they are going to tumble down the steps to their death. We opted for wooden strips that are shaped on both edges like a fancy trim. We painted them to match the walls and drilled holes for the gate bumpers to fit into to give it extra stability.
Here is a very recent picture of the pseudo intellectual. He is only 9 months old. He has always looked older than his age:
Wes rigged the ladder in the bottom picture and told me not to bounce around a lot while I did the cutting in along the ceiling edge and in the corners. The piece of wood is only being held in place by the ladder. There was not a whole lot of incline. But the drop would only be about 12 feet.
I went out a couple ladder rungs, but then I couldn't do it. You know how you hear people say "don't look down" when they are trying to get someone down from a height? I looked down! I froze. I was the only one upstairs. I literally could not move. So I sweetly asked my dear husband to do the cutting in. Here it is when he was finished. You can see the color better here.
The back wall is two stories high. That is NOT the same ladder as in the top pictures. So I found our extension handle for the roller and away I went. The top picture is the finished product. I LOVE this color.
Now I'm off to paint the inside of my soon-to-move-in-with-us daughter's closet and wallbed cubby.
3 comments:
When our grandson & youngest daughter lived with us, I had Prince Charming install a baby gate too (also at the top of our stairs FROM the upstairs family room) I was VERY reluctant to drill holes in the free standing staircase (baulusters?) so we sort of rigged it. That makes it sound un-safe - but what we did is fabricate a sort of "box" to go around the end pole that I glued felt pads to. Then we drilled the holes from one side of the frame to the other frame peice. And unless you really LOOKED HARD you didn't even notice there was a sort of "sleeve" around the end post. Worked like a charm for 2 years, and then little fingers could unlick it quicker than I can! So we took it down. Oh ! We had magic blue tape at our house too. I laid down blue painters tape everywhere the the baby was NOT TO GO. It only took a few days of sternly convincing him that he did not need to cross the tape & after a year of tape - he didn't & doesn't come into the no-zone. The NO-ZONE is my sewing area. I don't have any way to cut off access to it like I did in my last house.
Thanks for showing pictures of the little man - he's gorgeous.
Sam
We have a nice toddler gate from the JCPenney catalog that goes up across the top of our stairs any time little ones will be at our house.
I can't stand heights, either. I totally relate!
oh yes, that taupe is much warmer and cosy, well done, stair wells are horrible to paint, I confess,we had someone come in and paint ours.
Your little chap is just grgeous!
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