The Maple Gate 

Gates that do more

Linking the past

Making gates is actually fairly easy. They are really just a rectangle with hingers or wheels. The tricky part is to bring a sense of belonging. It doesn't matter if the design is contemporary or more traditional the end result should look and feel like it belongs there.   

In this case the family had just finished a lovely and tasteful renovation to their Bentleigh bungalow and went looking for gates. They couldn't find anything that did their home justice.  

The first meeting is what I call the “cup of tea” meeting. We only talk about the gates as a requirement. In this case we mostly talked about the renovation, what lead them to chose the new fittings and what is it they liked about the original features that they wanted to keep. Thats when we discovered the one original part of the house they just had to keep. Eureka! We have inspiration. 

Making a design work is a more tricky than copying whats there.  Scale is critical.  In this case I used a lead light window at the front of the house to inspire the design. I needed to start again only using the window as a style guide only.  What we ended up with was an up scaled more robust design that looks closely related to the window that inspired them. 

Next was the feel of the gates. I wanted them to feel the weight and quality without the groans and creaks of an old gate.

The gates are made from 1/2 inch by 1 inch solid steel.  Yes thats right “inch” old school steel. But the hingers and locks are 21st century. Heavy duty stainless steel hingers and modern dead locks. Heavy but smooth, well balanced and able to be secured.  

Finally everything was rust proofed and powder-coated to match the trim on the house.

Installation went smoothly and all the owners had to do was have an electrician install a power outlet to the front garden. 

The driveway gate is remote control and has battery back up incase of power outage. All done.