The trouble with a fixed gate in a busy hallway is that you spend all day opening it, and eventually you stop bothering and leave it open. This one folds back like an accordion and sits flat against the wall, so the route through the house is clear when nobody needs blocking, and closed again in a second when they do.

The lattice is timber rather than plastic or bare steel, which is the reason most people choose it: in an older hallway it reads as a piece of furniture instead of as equipment. Because it expands and contracts rather than fitting one fixed width, the same gate can move from the kitchen doorway to the porch to the top of the garden steps as your layout or your dog changes, which is not true of a gate cut for a single opening.

• Wooden lattice in a natural wood colour
• Expands and retracts to suit different widths
• Folds flat against the wall when not in use
• Accordion design, no single fixed width
• 1.4kg, supplied as one gate

Two things worth knowing. The manufacturer lists the size only as shown in the photographs and gives no width or height at all, so we will measure a unit for you rather than repeat a figure we cannot verify. And an expanding lattice gate is a discouragement rather than a barrier. At the top of a staircase it must be screw-fixed into something solid, and a determined large dog will move anything that only leans.

Who it's for: Owners of settled adult dogs who need a doorway, porch or garden step closed off in an older house, and anyone who wants the barrier to disappear when guests arrive.