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I'm building a gate for the top of the stairs since our 10-month-old is a perpetual flight risk from his room at the end of the short hallway. I'm trying to figure out if I can install three latch catches such that the gate can be in any one of three positions.

As I hope these pictures show, the gate could theoretically be closed (0 degrees), completely open (when baby is asleep or downstairs -- 180 degrees) or it could partition the hallway so that we can get up and down but he can't since his room is on the other side (~100 degrees). The second photo is the same arrangement but taken from the doorway on the bottom left of the first photo.

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My main question is whether there's a type of latch that makes sense here. A standard outdoor gate latch both wouldn't fit and would mean the latch would stick out of the wall in a way that we'd probably bump into a lot. I'm hoping there's something less obtrusive. The catch here -- pun unintended, until now! -- is that the middle latch at about 100 degrees has to be easy to either engage or bypass if we want to open the gate all the way (180 degrees).

Second, is there an ideal hinge here? In order for the gate to reach both the wall at 100 degrees and the door frame at 0 degrees, it has to be set about two inches to the left of the edge of the bannister (green line in second image). This has the benefit of meaning the gate won't physically be able to swing into the stairwell, such that the latch at 0 degrees doesn't need to do all the work keeping Baby upstairs. I'm picturing a vertical bar that protrudes from the bannister and attaches to knuckles fixed to the gate.

Finally, I'd note only that the latch at 100 degrees doesn't have to be able to withstand tremendous impact since, if Baby manages to push it open, it will just swing to the 0 degrees position. He'll be able to invade the bathroom but not get to the stairs.

Thank you!

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    I wouldn't skimp on Latch 2 - the baby could open the gate and crawl around it, there's no guarantee the gate would properly latch closed on Latch 1. It's Latch 3 that could be a simple magnet clasp that doesn't need to withstand impact, since the baby won't have access to the open gate unsupervised anyway.
    – Nuclear Hoagie
    Commented Oct 25 at 15:49
  • Great point!. I was somehow picturing a spring hinge, which may or may not be doable in this space.
    – Chris Wilson
    Commented Oct 25 at 16:22
  • IMO you're gonna need to use a double-action type of hinge (like you see in restaurants to let the kitchen door swing both ways). It would have to be anchored to the hallway face of the newel post. The type of latch probably depends on the actual construction of the gate—have you pinned that down yet?
    – Huesmann
    Commented Oct 26 at 12:35

2 Answers 2

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There are retractable baby gates which are roll out nets that hook onto the other side and use a child-resistant lock on the roller to prevent enough slack to let it unhook.

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If you can acquire another hook (either by looking through second hand markets, ordering two units, or ordering parts from the manufacturer) then you can put the roller on the banister post and one hook each on the doors.

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  • Interesting! Would you mind dropping a link or an image? I most certainly don't need specific product advice, but I want to be sure I'm picturing the right thing. Because I did originally think I'd like a gate that first slide from open to closed, but then, when it was closed (such that the slider was fully extended), had the option of swinging open. I can sort of picture such a thing in houses that have sliding doors to the backyard that somehow also swing. Am I imagining this?
    – Chris Wilson
    Commented Oct 25 at 16:22
  • @ChrisWilson it's essentially a sideways roller blind but strong enough to let a toddler ram into it full speed.
    – ratchet freak
    Commented Oct 25 at 16:54
  • I see what you mean! I might even be able to 3D-print the extra hooks if they don't have their own magic powers. Will consult all the baby safety druids. Thank you! (Will follow up.)
    – Chris Wilson
    Commented Oct 25 at 21:46
  • I bought a product very similar to this, and it came with two sets of hooks. @ChrisWilson would need three, but maybe some come with three sets or something. Anyway, it works quite well, and is fairly easy to install. The hooks and the roll stick out some that might be obtrusive in this context, though—particularly for walking past latch 2.
    – KRyan
    Commented Oct 26 at 2:39
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    @KRyan they only needs 2 closed positions, the third position in the OP is the open position, which for the roller is just retracted.
    – ratchet freak
    Commented Oct 26 at 7:14
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A simple hardware store barrel bolt latch mounted on top of the gate could slide into a hole in the door frame at the midway position. Line the hole with a metal tube glued into the wood trim. These latches come with a metal loop to attach to the wall or banister, so you may have to buy 2 latches or improvise a wood block with a hole to screw to the wall etc. You can squeeze the body tabs to add resistance to the sliding bolt. I would add a door stop or trim board to the wall at the stair opening for extra safety, those dang kids grow and love to push on gates.

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