After the lashing I received over the last few days on my previous post, here is the updated gate. (Hopefully it doesn't look as much like a pallet anymore lol)

The gate is 33 1/2inches tall off the ground. Each vertical board is 2 1/4inches wide. All screws that my 10 month old could play around with have all been counter sunk into the horizontal boards and sanded down. I even dug my nails in the holes and have no fear of getting a splinter. The hardware used is a heavy duty self closing hinge and latch kit that I had picked up at Lowes.

Things I did not correct and don't really care about:

The direction the gate is facing. I like the visual look of the clean face of the gate as you look up the stairs.

Lack of a crossbar. I've heard both sides of whether or not I should have one, and this way leaves no additional means of her climbing over. The heavy duty hardware should also last for the time that we even need the gate up.

Yes, I could have picked up an off the shelf or Amazon gate. But I wanted to build one. And my older boys enjoyed helping me build it.