We have many more locks and gates in this house than most houses do. We’ve taken some down recently, but in the last year this would have been the house you’d see when you visited.
On our front door we have two locks. One is a sliding deadbolt set six feet up. That one is locked all the time, no exceptions. Underneath that we have a combination padlock. That one is locked whenever I leave the first floor of the house.
Moving on into the dining room you pass the stairs, where there’s a gate at the bottom. (All our gates are fully custom Gleeson jobs and are solid boards that slide in and out of place. There are rails for a gate in the doorway to the dining room, but we don’t keep that one up all the time.) So, now, in the dining room. We have rails installed behind the chairs so that babies can’t slide them out and use them to climb over the aforementioned gates. To get a chair out, you lift it up two inches over the rail bolted to the floor. Babies are highly intelligent but they tend to be a.) inexperienced and b.) weak. This thwarts them most excellently.
You’ll see the door to the kitchen there to the right. It’s also secured by two locks, the always-locked deadbolt and the unattended combination lock. In the kitchen is a door that leads to the backyard, which is also double locked, and a door to the basement, which is combination locked.
Other locks include the six foot lock to the coat closet and the lock bolting the TV to the wall. Our old CRT TV was bolted to the TV stand which was screwed into the floor, but we got one a them fancy flat screens now. Other things bolted to things include all furniture large enough to fall and crush someone, so all the bookcases are, you guessed it, bolted to the wall.
And that’s just the downstairs! I’ll cover the upstairs in a later post.
Yours was the first house, and probably the only house, (other than my own) that I actually was able to relax in.
We have more locks than typical too, including the lock to lock everybody in the bedroom at night so nobody has time to try and get the door locks undone and escape.
we have a few locks i never thought we would have- as you know, a fridge lock that i only have to use sometimes, and little sliding bolts on almost every door. the front door has a keyed lock, a dead bolt, and a sliding bolt up high to lock people *in*.
I remember when we had a sliding lock up on high on the front door. I am grateful we do not have aspiring escape artists in my house. But I agree, I feel perfectly safe letting my kids completely roam free in your house!