Customer Reviews

The First Years Everywhere Gate

5 star:		(79)
4 star:		(27)
3 star:		(14)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I just installed one of these gates and it was a snap. The gate comes with a template you tape up to show where to drill (you will want a power drill) so there's no measuring anxiety. If you have molding there are spacers to even out the hinges or brackets. In my case, I live in an old house with relatively non-square angels to just about everything. The spacers provided turned a potential disaster into five minutes of tinkering.
The gate itself has a handle that can be opened using only one hand (very important for when you carry baby). The gate can also be taken off its hinge mounting very easily by a latch located on the inner (hinge) edge of the gate. I suspect this will be nice for when folks come over. Finally, it doesn't look like a baby penitentiary due to the soft curves of the plastic and the clear window. This is a functional, simple and attractive gate and I give it five stars. My son would give it one star for it thwarts all his little efforts at elicit exploration.

I purchased 2 of these gates a couple of months ago. I planned to use them pressure mounted. At first they worked great & I loved the fact that you could see thru them, but already one of them lost tension so now it doesn't fit tight in the doorway. I'm contacting the first years customer svc today & will let you know how I make out.
****4/19/05 Good customer service. All I have to do is break the handle off the gate & mail it back to them and they'll send a new gate.

We bought this gate after having a pressure mounted gate, that you have to step over. It is currently between the dining room and kitchen doorways. The first gate we had you had to step over, a close friend tried to step over it, and fell and almost smashed her face on our oven! That night her and I went to Babies R Us, and found this gate. We had a blast putting it up, trying to create our own directions, but once it was up, it was great! It has been properly functioning, my handle has NEVER broken, it's never fallen, or closed improperly. We are about to purchase a new home with steep stairs, we are going to buy two more of these gates today!! I've had this gate for 2 years now, my only problem was the finger prints and smudgy face prints from my son, and the best way I have found to keep it looking brand new (STILL)is to use Windex Multi Surface (the green one) it keeps the plexi-glass clean, and keeps the gate clean too! I would hands down recommend this gate to anyone and everyone I come into contact with! We even have baseboards, and I like the fact that the gate goes over them, and that makes it that much more difficult for my son to attempt to stand or swing on it (which has never happened no matter how hard he's tried!)
I love this gate!!! I love it!

I bought 3 of these gates for my home daycare and love them. They were very easy to install and seem to be very durable. I would agree that I would not use the pressure mount as that is how I had them set up to begin with and I was very unhappy because they were not that easy to put up and take down on a regular basis. I think that for the price they are one of the best wall mounted gates on the market. The gates are also extra wide so they fit larger than normal doorways without having to buy an extension piece. If you have a climber as I do, they can get over them as with any gate of this height but it does not pull out of the wall or open by its self while he is doing so. The gates are very sturdy and I am going out today to buy a fourth for the top of my stairs.

I originally bought this gate to use with our dog. Now I'm using it with the baby - but I've decided to replace it with a true swing gate. This one stays pressure mounted pretty well, but it is too high to comfortably step over (I am 5'6'') especially with a baby in your arms. In addition, my 9 yr old cannot get over it. I thought I was buying a "gate" that would swing open and closed. Not the case. It has a latch - but all the latch does is release the pressure, loosening the whole gate, requiring you to turn around and secure it in place again - all impossible while carrying a baby. The other thing I don't like is the clear panels stay dirty all the time and glass cleaner doesn't seem to help.

We've now had this gate for THREE years (and have used it in two houses) and absolutely love it. It's easy to install and operate with one hand. And you can also *switch* it (if necessary) from a pressure-mounted gate (if you don't need it to swing) to a bolt-mounted gate.

In our last home, the opening at the top of the stairs was too large for this gate (we eventually got a Supergate V--- which worked fine for that space... but wasn't as easy to close as this one). Since we already had this gate, we used it as a pressure-mounted gate at the bottom of the stairs so our infant son couldn't climb the stairs without our guidance. When we moved to a new house, we mounted it with bolts at the top of our stairs... where we are currently using it as a swinging gate.

It's probably been opened and closed thousands of times, and it still works. I highly recommend it.

We bought this gate to keep our toddler out of the bathroom during the day, and to limit her space to roam at night (just between her room and ours.) Anyway, this gate worked great in a doorway as a pressure mounted gate. Our trouble came when we went to use it in the hallway. The baseboards made it impossible to get tight. The gate is also heavy and this makes it hard to make the proper adjustments to get it tight when trying to use it above the baseboards. I think this gate would have been great if it were hardware mounted and used as a swing gate. This is an option for the gate, but not one that fit our needs. We wanted to move it around and use it in different places.

Great Gate especially for the price. Gate was very easy to install. We have it hardware mounted at the bottom of our stairs and it works great...light enough to open with full arms but sturdy enough that when my son beats on it it doesn't move. It is easy to adjust when it is hardware mounted and fits perfect every time. A good thing to know (that I didn't and bought anyway) is that it does come with spacers that can be attached to the wall for uneven walls. There are 2 different widths that can be used and stacked on top of each other. Overall we are very pleased..even my husband who was a little skeptical loves it.

We purchased this gate for the top of the stairs. We live in a townhouse and have an unusal stairwell I suppose. Installing this gate was a great pain! We could not find a stud in the wall to match up with the areas we would need to install it at and had to purchase Toggle bolts to better secure the gate into the wall....so a toddler putting LOTS of force on it would not rip the gate-and the drywall out- thus tumbling down the stairs. ALSO, we have molding and while the gate does come with extenders to work around/over the molding, it didnt work for us. We had to install the gate ABOVE the molding thus leaving a 4 to 5 inch GAP from the floor to the gate. This is BAD! Our daughter has tried to squeeze her way under the gate to get down the stiars and almost managed to do this feet first. Luckily I am never out of view of her upstairs nor not upstairs with her (small townhouse!) and only purchased it for the safety of knowing she wont lose her balance at the top of the stairs. I have only used this gate for a top of stair gate so I have nothing else to compare it to. Hopefully it is only that I live in an oddly shaped home and it works great for most other folks.

NOTE: It does take a lot of measuring up and making sure that every point matches up PERFECTLY or the gate will not operate properly or smoothly. I do however, like the top lift bar to open the gate and it is easy to unlock and lock back into place with two button ontop the lift bar handle. While I still had problems using it as a top of stair gate, I do think it would work very well as a doorway gate.

I needed a gate to keep my 55 pound bulldog out of certain rooms of the house. I tried it hardware mounted, but she dislodged it from the wall. When I pressure mount it, she can not budge it. Plus, it is very easy to adjust if I need to move her to another room in the house. Now that I am pregnant, I will definitely purchase this product for other areas of the house. The reason I gave this product 4 stars is because of the damage my dog caused when it was hardware mounted. However, I doubt a small child go do the same damage.