Our New Custom Dog Gate is Installed!

Last April, when we built the doghouse under the stairs, it was always with the intention that we would put a gate on it and use it as a kennel for our next Golden Retriever puppy (who will finally be here in 9 days!).

Max always sort of imagined he would build a gate himself out of wood, but I had other plans. I told him a couple months ago that I really wanted a metal gate.

He said he probably couldn’t make that himself.

I agreed.

So I sent this bad sketch of what I was looking for to a local business, Sam’s Fabrication, to see if he could build me something like this. He does a lot of metal work and welding so I figured he would be the man for the job.

He got back to me right away and said he could do it, and after a bit of back and forth on whether to use a frame or just install it into the door jamb, he started building.

He was great to work with and consulted me on everything from hinges to latches, sending me pictures along the way. He then painted the gate flat matte black as requested and I sent Max to pick it up (it weighs a ton – which I guess I should have expected from a metal gate).

We were excited to install it right away.

Unfortunately because of the way the hinges sat up against the trim, we realized we wouldn’t be able to inset it in the door frame as much as we had hoped, and the deadbolt wouldn’t be able to go right into the jamb without the door sitting crooked. Nothing can ever be easy.

So we decided to wait until the next day to install and figure out the latch.

Max screwed the gate hinges into the door jamb, using a book to prop up the heavy gate a bit so it wouldn’t be right on the floor and he could keep it level.

He pre drilled holes and then used long screws to attach it. We knew it would be strong since behind the door jamb is a two by four we could drill into.

Once it was attached we closed it to figure out our latch situation (since into the door jamb directly was no longer an option).

The deadbolt would go almost directly into the trim when the door was closed straight so I decided to try to camouflage the metal latch as much as possible.

Max took off the trim and installed the catch and then measured where a cut out would have to be made on the trim for it to stick out.

After some discussion on what would work best to cut out the notch we settled on my dremel. We used a spare piece of trim for some practice.

And then I cut out the actual notch.

Max installed it over the metal piece and it looked awesome.

I just quickly painted it black to match.

And we have a fully installed and functioning gate!
It’s everything I wanted and Sam did a great job. I usually reserve building requests based off bad sketches for Max only but he handled it well.

The above picture is from before I painted the catch black but shows the shape of the gate nicely.

I love it!

Let me know if you have any questions. I’ve linked Sam above but you can also click here.

Linked up via Thrifty Décor Chick