because baby gates SHOULD be pretty....

random fact...miss maggie is our first baby that we have had to wrangle away from stairs.

yes, it is true. when ellie was a babe we lived in a first floor apartment...no stairs there! then we moved to a two level house in arizona just after ellie's 2nd birthday so she already had the stairs mastered. we lived in that house until cece was four months old...not crawling yet! and then we moved to our single story home in the desert. see no stairs for a wee baby to attempt to climb.

maggie is our first baby versus stairs experience. eek.

we knew we wanted to get a pretty solid gate for the top of the stairs. we wanted it to be something that was strong and sturdy AND that the big girls could easily move through. we went with {this gate}. it was a little pricey but provided the safety and ease we wanted. installation was pretty easy once we got everything lined up.

the gate has worked very well. it opens relatively easily and the girls have not had any problems using it. and most importantly it keeps miss maggie safe.

once we had the top of the stairs secured we turned our attention to the bottom of the steps. we weren't quite sure what to do. then my sister mentioned something she saw on pinterest using pvc pipe and fabric. we thought that would be perfect.

i did a little pinterest searching and found {this pin}.

we picked up the pvc pipe from home depot for less than $8. tim cut the pvc and constructed the frame. pretty simple. we added three cross braces to make it more sturdy.

once it was finished i measured it up to create the fabric cover. the problem was the only piece of fabric i had that was big enough to cover the frame was white...not exactly what i had in mind. so i had to get creative. i started by pulling fabrics i liked to make stripes.

then i got a great idea. and if you know me many of my great ideas include bunting. i cut some hap-hazard pennants and sewed them on the white fabric to make bunting. and i love it.

i mean isn't everything better with bunting!?!?! maggie agrees.

i will admit....adding the stripes and especially the bunting made this project about 10 times harder than it needed to be...but all that work was so worth it. this baby gate is beautiful and just makes me happy.

so how does the gate work? well it works pretty well. it moves easily and maggie doesn't even mess with it. AND it keeps miss maggie safe!

 what are you looking at? i am just minding my own business over here chewing on ellie's backpack.

*linked to 52 Mantels: Thursdays are YOUR days