Thursday, November 19, 2009

babyproofing

for some reason i am inordinately proud of these:


that's my soaping cabinet. it's next to my refrigerator in the kitchen, a lower cabinet. it contains all the soaping supplies i use on a regular basis - herbs, colorants, oils, soap scraps. tools that could hurt The Kiddo. glass bottles that could break. essential oils and fragrance oils that could be fatal if ingested. sodium hydroxide - LYE - that will destroy her skin if she touches it. we have latches for all our cabinet drawers and lower doors, but i wanted something sturdier for the soaping cabinet. something with a key.

those are just cabinet locks that i picked up in the latches section of home depot, the same area where you would find those little locks that go on window frames. they have a flat or offset piece in the back that swings across the cabinet frame, blocking the door, and they are pretty darn strong. the same kind of thing you'd find on a filing cabinet in your office. for some reason i was a bit put off by this project but decided to just dive in and do it, and it ended up being very simple. i traced the frame on the back of the door (so i knew where the frame hit the door) and then marked where i wanted the lock. i drilled a hole the size of the lock completely through the door, then diassembled the lock, fit it into the hole, and reassembled it in the hole. the concept is the same as installing a new door handle.

also, i should have checked but ended up completely lucking out - the locks are sold individually but the two i grabbed off the rack ended up taking the same key. the package does note on the back which key they use (ours was something like # 21233). i don't know why i didn't think to make sure when i bought them because it would have been a massive pain in the butt if i had to use one key to get into the left side and a different key to get into the right side.

cross-posted at baby stenz

1 comment:

Sarah @ BecomingSarah.com said...

Are you kidding? I'd be proud too!