And some safety proofing tips..

So far, so good with my hearth design-although Sol hasn't been around it a lot yet. Only time will tell!!

We still have some items exposed that I see us saying "no!" to Sol as he messes with them. After speaking with a friend, and mother of two, I am going with my gut that it's just better to cover everything we are concerned about, so that Sol can explore without my watching his every move. 

For now, I have a few items I picked up at target and a couple more that were handed down from friends, thank you!!

I thought I was going to like the option on the left and purchased several of them. I hate them!  They are frustrating to get on and off a most of the cabinets because the space is either to wide or too narrow. The option on the right has been great. Easy to set up and easy for ME to open for access.

A similar hand me down item is working great, too!

I asked David to begin installing other locks last week. He had to drill into the cabinet door and on his second door, two nails broke!  It was late that night and I wasn't having it. I wish I had realized how awesome these other locks are because we could have used them on this door arrangement, since there are two side by side.

We still have 4 cabinets we will need to drill in for kitchen safety, but then we can breathe a sigh of relief, I hope. Still may need to think through oven, dishwasher, and freezer locks.

This $9.99 gate I picked up at Burlington suits the front entryway, and we have a door in the kitchen to close--so the back part of the house is my biggest focus.

I have put outlet plugs in that part of the house and will be continuing in other rooms soon. While I do not plan for Sol to spend time in the front part of the house, I never know why he may end up out there...I may accidentally leave the door open, we may have him out there when entertaining company, or perhaps a sitter wouldn't realize we don't frequent that area.  I'm going to continue on with the plug covers, for sure, and will think of how to secure those cabinets as well. 

For now, I'm left struggling with how to proof this:

Eeek, look closely and you can see the back of a remote on the floor right below the stand. While brushing my teeth, Sol already tackled this area with extreme interest and excitement for his balancing/standing. Oy vey!

I found these do it yourself suggestions on Pinterest for the bottom of the stairs:

&

Not sure if I'll have time to do either, but I especially love the second option--so cute!

I'm especially struggling because this area belongs to our one and only furry girl--I hate to take it away from her!!

We've brought in some gates for stairs, but realized that the side hand rail interferes with the gate meeting the wall. We also tried fitting it to the other wall, but the gate wasn't long enough.

Well, that's enough for now. Off to studying!  Need to knock some research out so I can enjoy the beautiful Fall weather with my family!