Dog House Latches

These old dog-house latches were brutal on my ankles- The circular metal part scraped my leg every time I would get in or out of the passenger seat ... 


... I insisted on a different mechanism. 
We had the butterfly latches on our last rig- so I went searching for something similar.

This is the smaller part of what we came up with-

.

We will add a few more to keep it secure.

"Batten Down the Hatches"...

...or in the modern RV world it would be "Batten Down the Latches".
The Damon has some doghouse latches that I had never seen before. They are fairly large with big rubber balls that pull over a metal bracket. This action is supposed to pull the two sides together. (My husband told me he saw them in the military service - they were used on Jeep hoods.)

My problem is with the one on the passenger side.  It was installed wrong and the round part will not pull far enough to lock into place.

It then leaves the metal bracket ends exposed-which sticks out enough that I scrape my shin on it whenever I am in the passenger seat.

Fast forward to now- we are planning to re-do the flooring and carpet in the front area of the RV before we install the new chairs and since my spouse loves me so much he decided to find different latches.

These lie flat when the doghouse is battened down. I don't expect to see any scraped shins in the near future!