A long-time customer asked me to build a gate for her deck. I told her I never built one before and she was fine with that. I'm really cheap. I made it work, but I just wanted to run it by some people and maybe I can do it better next time and not be such a hack. Here's what I did: I got a cheap hinge and latch set for 15 bucks from the depot. I wasn't sure how much play was going to be in those cheap hinges, so I decided to build the gate in place. I clamped 2 horizontal 2x4's in place to line up with the rest of the deck. I raised the latch side a little bit, but I had to eyeball that. Then I screwed in the hinges. I put the spindles on with 2 nails in the finish nailer. Then I put on two decorative diagonal pieces. Everything was great until the whole 4x4 post where I had just screwed the hinges decided to lean over. It was notched out around the step and had two big carriage bolts going through it. It looked pretty darn solid, but apparently not. I put two lag screws all the way through the 4x4 and into the wall of the house. I don't know what those lag screws went into, but they felt nice and solid. The nails are galvanized, but I'm not sure if they will rust eventually. Maybe I should have used screws or some glue or something. I put 4 nails in each spindle, but I'm not sure if that's enough. Should I have built the gate on the ground and hung it all at once? Is there a better way I could have reinforced that post?