Creating a dog access gate

Recently, I was contacted about making a gate to restrict the movement of the customer’s dogs. They were using the closet under the staircase as a place to keep their dogs when new visitors are there. It was a new house which included a closet door to that area, but they also had the builder add a small 18 x 18 opening for the dogs to enter and exit that area. What they need now was a metal gate they could close to keep the dogs in, but it needed to not be solid so the dogs could see what was going on and still feel connected. So, you see below what I came up with. The horizontal bars match the stair rail design. The latch on the right side proved to be a challenging part of the design because it needed to be small, simple and attractive. A nice powder coat finish and ta-da! It turned out great, the customer was thrilled and hey, I learned a few things. I love a challenge. Oh, and the other challenge was making it hinge far enough out of the door jam to allow it to swing all the way back against the baseboard. A magnet will hold it there securely. The customer wanted to install it himself, but it has been delivered and verified to fit and work properly. – Tom