You can always fill in the holes later with wood filler, and you won't
even be able to see it. Hook and eye closures are really handy -
especially the spring loaded ones, so a kid can't reach up with a
hockey stick and unlatch them. We have them up high on several doors
in our house because you will want the option of keeping kids out of
certain areas long past toddlerhood.

We have three kids, now 13, 10 and 6.

We entertain a lot, and we frequently still latch the door to our
bedroom when other people's kids are over, so they don't get into
stuff. We latch the furnace room, and the upstairs laundry room -
again not so much to keep our kids out, but to keep their FRIENDS out
of there (you never know where kids playing at your house will go, and
you can't watch a herd of them every second). We also latch the
basement pantry periodically, depending on who is over playing and
what's in there.

If nothing else, it gives the clear "no-go area" message to an older
kid, as well as effectively stopping the really little ones.

Our kids are pretty big, and they do know better than to get into most
stuff, but their friends may not, so the latches are still in use and
they won't come down for a few years yet.

Mary G.