Shopsmith Forums

This is one of those quick, easy and simple projects that lets me enjoy woodworking when I am short of time to work in the shop.
We had lost our family dog of over 15 years late last spring and decided that we needed to acquire a "new used dog". A few trips to the local shelter yielded "Guinness" a 2 year old beagle / rottweiler cross. He was 48 pounds of pure muscle, very well trained in most areas. He is super house broken and fully crate trained. He came to us fully vet checked, all shots and neutered. He knows his toys and does not bother anything else laying about. We didn't know about the crate training but he loves it. It is where he feels the most safe and unless we are leaving to go someplace we just leave the door open and he often goes there to sleep.
He has 2 problems. One is that he is a bit stubborn (fits right in here ) The other is that he doesn't like cats and we had 2 We lost the oldest one this fall (she was 16) but the other one (Checkers) is younger. We have kept them with one door between the mud hall and the kitchen blocked with a heavy antique fireplace screen giving them each about half of the house. They are kind of friends??? through the screen but I would not want to go outside and leave them together. The cat can access the whole house but usually stays in his part. While Guinness does leave things alone generally he is not above cleaning out the cats food dish if he gets a chance. They did have a disagreement last week... The cat won.
With our old dog we just kept her bowl filled and she managed her weight well. OK, we had Guinness at the vet in the late summer and he had gained 14 pounds. He is now on a careful diet.
Anywho, that old heavy fireplace screen was a real pain especially since that is our most heavily used door including groceries etc. This gate has a quick one hand latch.
The gate is made of some oak trim strips I had in the shop, all glued and screwed. I was going to paint it to match the kitchen cabinet doors (deep red) but I sealed it with a coat of spray shellac and for now I think I will just leave it like this. There are a lot of gate options but on this horse farm a miniature horse gate just fits.

Farmer,

I like the gate you made. It's a perfect solution to separating areas and much easier to open a gate than trying to climb over or moving something each time you want to pass through.

Looks good and well built.

I like it. Should do the job, too.

I had considered a Dutch door but this old farm house is very large and spread out (we heat and cool 4,000 sq. ft.) My heating and cooling both depend a lot on its circular air flow pattern for even temperatures. Even a Dutch door would restrict it too much. I need to make another gate for a back hall between the main bath and the library.
As I was setting it all up I spent a lot of time burning incense and watching the flow patterns of the smoke. At least it smelled nice.


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We had a somewhat similar issue in needing to section off the house- we had an old pug st the time who was experiencing a lot of pain due to orthopedic issues. We happened to get a puppy (which we had been planning for) right after he injured himself. We were using baby gates initially to keep them separated for the pug's safety (the puppy wouldn't be aggressive- he just was a little too exuberant without yet mastering control of his limbs and he could have further injured the pug). After I tripped and fell while trying to step over the baby gate, I decided we needed a much better/ safer option so I designed these gates and we have 2 of them. Like you, I was worried about the heating and didn't want to block the necessary airflow. I've found these have worked wonderfully even after 8 years in use.