This gate works very nicely at the top of our stairs! We have thick trim on the banisters, but we were able to use spacers and didn't need to use any additional adapter. It looks nice and works well for our 1 year old grandson. The only complaint I have is that the locking mechanism gets stuck sometimes when you go to turn it into the lock position. Wiggling it back and forth has worked to get it un-stuck, but this could become an issue if it continues or becomes worse. Aside from that, it is a great gate!

Edit: We purchased a second gate for the bottom of the stairs (the smaller one). Works great and love that you can pop them off when you don't need them. Looks so much better than other gates.

I have two dogs, one is a 30 lb dachshund/doberman mix and a 12 lb chihuahua/poodle mix. I have purchased about 4 baby gates overall. Overall review of the 4 gates I have including this one:

Baby metal games that has a door that swings open.
2 of them were the metal gates where you open the door. I had the gates at the bottom of our stairs to prevent the dogs from coming up. However, my 30 lb dog gets really anxious and figured out how to jump the gate. If he can't jump the gate, he will inflict self harm until he can get past it. So we decided to put the baby gates on top of the stairs. The dogs won't dare to jump it at the top of the stairs. We had to buy a taller one to prevent him from jumping. The metal gates are not safe on top of the stairs because the walk through entry is narrow and it has a bar at the bottom that's a hazard for someone to trip over and have a horrible accident down the stairs.

Fencing gate that stands upright on its own.
This one we had "hoped" that the dog wouldn't just push over. But it's easy to knudge to the side and walk through.

Mesh retractable baby gate (this one for purchase).
I don't like drilling holes on the walls or the stair banisters. Instead, I used tons of 16 lb command strips to hold up the hooks on the wall (Make sure the command strips is placed on the wall and unused for at least 24-48 hours before attempting to attach the gate on it). I used velcro ties to hold up the baby gate on the stair banister. So far, it has worked great!
- It's been over 6 months now. The dogs haven't attempted to go under or over the gate.
- It retracts easily so that you don't lose any walkway space while going up or down that stairs.
- The white mesh sort of camouflages with the white stair banister so you barely notice it's there.
- Doesn't easily get dirty (actually haven't had any issues with dirt or dust on it)
- The only small issue I have is when we first started using it, it's a bit tricky to align the baby gate to the bars, but once you get the hang of it, it's easy to use.
- When putting the baby gate up, make sure you lock it so that the mesh doesn't auto retract. It's also good to prevent the dogs from pushing it (if they do) because it doesn't give any slack to allow them to crawl underneath.

I haven't tried it on any kids yet, but that will be soon!

Extremely durable, very functional. Now that I've used it, I know I would have happily paid more considering the results of using it for three years

Love the ease with installing. I only wished that the manufacturer would have included the dry wall anchors and spacers. Not everybody has things like that at the ready. Luckily I had some shims I could flip and use and found some plastic anchors. Again, would be nice to have had included.

A friend asked me if I had a recommendation for a gate, and after looking this up in my order history I had to pop in and give a review.

I have a set of stairs that comes right up into my kitchen and no room for a swinging gate. When we were looking for one we wanted a gate that can be opened with a single hand (while holding stuff with the other), a gate that was retractable, and a gate that would obviously prevent the kids from falling down the stairs.

This gate has been in continuous use for the last 4 years and works the same as the fist day we installed it. Which is amazing to be honest. I had fully expected to need to replace it by now with a new one. It gets used probably 20+ times per day.