Remodeling for accessibility
 

We bought our house before I was dx'd with the intention of it being a long-term place to live. We reached a bit on the pricing to get into an area we really wanted, with an acre lot, nice neighbors, good schools. Since then, I've had another child, been dx'd with MS, the bottom has dropped out of the real estate market, and the house is not even worth what we paid for it. Worst of all it's not even remotely handicap accessible.

If it was feasible, we would just buy a lot and build a home using universal design, but there's no way we could even sell this place now. We really like our location and neighborhood and would prefer to remodel. Does anyone have any experience with that sort of thing? Are there organizations or support groups that offer any kind of assistance? DH is not very handy and really doesn't have time to try his hand at remodeling anyway.

I don't even know if parts of our house could be made accessible. The kids' bedrooms have a very small bath in between and a very narrow hallway with tight right angle turns everywhere. Every doorway in the house is narrower than normal. I really just don't even know where to start.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Why don't you try googling "Home remodling for handicapped accessibility. I've done that for ideas on the few home adjustments I've made.

Good luck!!:hug:

The first place to start is with safety. Hand bars, grab rails, banisters...If you have an extra room (say a kid grows up and moves out) you can combine two rooms to make one large one. Widen doorways is a big project and requires larger doors to replace the ones you took out, but it makes it so a wheel chair can pass in and out of rooms. Put the hook door handles on instead of the round knobs so the level is pulled to open a door. Use slider switches on the lights and lower them a bit so they can be reached from a WC without you having to lean way up and out of the chair to turn them on or off, or get remote controled ceiling fans with lights and use that. You can have your tub removed and put in a roll in shower (bath fitters) will be much easier to slide from your chair to the stool in the shower, unless you want to install a lift to pick you up from your chair and hover you over the tub and then drop you in. They dont take up much room.

Remove slick floor stuff and put down fall friendly floors. Carpet may be harder to take care of in some areas, but if you fall it cushions the blow. Hard woods are easier in the main areas to roll your chair into and out of. Replace appliances that have knobs on top, with knobs on the bottom or front so you can reach um.

Tons of ideas on google. Some really cheap, some not. Good luck. :hug:

Hi Ms Arkie. I'm paraplegic from chest down.
Door hinges exist that swing the door back flush with door frame which takes away thickness of door.
Removed dish washer & finished behind it so I can roll under counter.
Cooktop you can roll under & wall oven is awesome & wish I had that!
I have 3 2x4's (about 5") stacked which my couch sits on to make transfers a breeze.
We used cement in the bags to pour ramps at front, rear & garage door.
Grab bars like Dej said's a cheap easy diy if you know what you're doing. Make sure at least 1 side screws in wall studs.

We remodeled two of our bathrooms last year around this time. One needed to be redone (got screwed by a company about 5yrs ago that did my mom's bathroom wrong) and my bathroom was made to be a bit more accessible.

I didnt do a roll-in shower in my bathroom. Mostly because if I ever end up using a chair, it wouldnt fit around the corner to get into my bathroom anyways. What they did was to take out the big fiberglass insert shower that was here when we moved in.

The tile floor that we had put into the shower in my bathroom is...I think...3in squares. Makes it so you have less grout to clean. Smaller tiles like 1x1's would give you more grout to clean, which probably isnt a good thing for someone who's not very mobile. (my mom's old shower had 1x1's and the grout was impossible to keep clean)

The lip on the floor that keeps the water from leaving my shower is 3 inches high. Enough to keep the water in the shower, and short enough that when I'm feeling weak, I can at least get myself into the shower. (the insert I used to have was 5inches off the ground, with a 1 1/2 lip where the shower door was that I had to step UP to get into. With no grab bars. Not fun to climb up into that...or back out when I was dizzy)

My shower is a lot bigger now that it's all tile. The old insert had this annoying seat that was slippery that I never sat on (I'd slide off) and took away a lot of space to move. Taking out the insert gave me a TON of space in the shower. I have a shower stool in my shower now, that I can take out whenever I want to.

I researched about grab bars before I even found a contractor to do our bathrooms. What I read was that you needed at least one vertical bar, and one horizontal bar. If you're sitting down, the vertical bar makes it easier to pull yourself up from a seated position. The horizontal bars help when you're standing.

I put 3 grab bars in my shower. (contractor put studs on two walls in the shower) The back wall has a horizontal and one vertical grab bar (looks like an upside down "T"), and the side wall that's opposite from the showerhead has one horizontal bar. (that's the same side of the shower where I climb into the shower) I also put two grab bars outside my shower. One vertical on the wall right outside the shower, and one that's horizontal right across from the toilet. (the bars that are outside the shower, are next to each other. Looks like an "L".

My contractor thought I went overboard on the grab bars, but I told him what I'd read, and he said that it did make sense.

I also spent a little more money and got some nicer looking grab bars, so that it didnt look too "hospital-ish". The bars are brushed nickel, and a little fancier looking than what's typically put in a handicap bathroom. They make great towel racks. :)

I have pictures somewhere, If I can find them, I should post them.

We also switched out the toilet that I originally had to a taller toilet. I miss the toilet that I used to have, mostly because it wasnt as low a low flusher as the new one ended up being. (old toilet was 8yrs old) I could put more...stuff...in that toilet and not worry about it not flushing as much.

The new toilet is taller, which it needed to be. About two months after we finished my bathroom remodel, I had a flare that made me wobble walk and I was really weak. The taller toilet and the new grab bars and not having to climb up to get into the shower was done just in time for me.

I might miss that old toilet for flushability, but love that the new one is taller and easier to sit down on when I'm dizzy and in pain from spasticity and back pain. I dont miss my old fiberglass shower at all. I love my new tile shower, and new tile floor. Only thing I didnt change in my bathroom was the sink (already a shorter sink) and the light fixture.

My mom's bathroom was totally re-done. Her previous remodel was done WRONG. (wrong on so many levels) We had taken out the big spa tub that was there originally about 5 or 6yrs ago. The contractor we picked back then didnt have any skill at building showers. What he built looked bad. I knew back then that he ripped off my parents, but my dad wouldnt listen to me.

It was growing mold, and had a slow leak that we didnt know about till they broke thru the old tile and found mold under the tile. For the re-remodel, we used the same tile that my bathroom was done in. Her shower is longer than mine, but is basically the same tile and design as my new shower is.

The only thing they didnt do was put a vertical grab bar in her shower. (which I'd asked for. Contractor forgot) But, at least my mom has grab bars outside and inside the shower. So, when you step in or out of the shower, there's a bar to grab onto. I wanted her and my dad to have something to hold onto when going in and out of the shower. (that's why I went a bit overboard on the bars in my bathroom. Wanted to be safe)

My mom's bathroom also got a new cabinet. They used to have a shower insert in the toilet stall area. We had that old insert deactivated during the first remodel, but never took it out. Mom was using it for dirty laundry, but I thought it would be a better use of space to turn it into large cabinet for storage. So, our re-remodel contractor built a HUGE cabinet for her and took out that old fiberglass insert. We put down tile thru my parents bathroom, their walk-in closet, and also in the toilet stall/cabinet area. I had them put grab bars in her toilet stall area next to the toilet.

My mom uses a walker (she had 2 knee replacements, but also has spinal stenosis) Her new bathroom is so much more usable for her. She can get in and out of it with the walker, and she said she feels safer with the new grab bars. (the contractor from the first remodel was a moron. He used the wrong kind of screws in the shower for the grab bars he put in, and they were almost rusted thru. We re-remodeled just in time.) It also looks much nicer now.

I'd picked a decorator to use when we did the remodels, and she got us a contractor who actually knew what he was doing. We paid a bit more because we had a decorator, but she made sure things matched and looked good, and the contractor made sure he did everything to code and was safe.

just realized I just wrote a novel on my bathroom remodels. :) I'm going to stop here now.

Can you knock it down and rebuid, keeping size, future needs, etc. in mind or is that too much $$$$? How old is your child

Try finding an architect first. They can figure out which walls are support walls, and how to remodel the inside of a house so that it's not only useable, but also will make sense, be safe, and look good.

You dont want someone who will just come in, knocking down walls and remodeling things without properly drawn out plans.

Thanks for all the great ideas and replies! I would really love to see any pictures of remodels, before and after, that anyone might have. My kids are still little, 5 & 7. I won't be kicking them out for a loooong time!

Truthfully, I would LOVE to knock this house down and rebuild. I think it might be cheaper in the long run. But that opens up a whole 'nother can of worms. How do we make house payments on this house while paying to live elsewhere and paying to build at the same time? We already go in the hole every month.

As far as do-it-yourself type stuff, I can't even get my DH to hang me a new towel bar in the bathroom. I bought it probably two years ago and it's been sitting next to the old one, which is barely hanging on the wall, ever since. I guess that's just not his area of expertise.

Please give me more ideas and suggestions, and post your pics!

I forgot to take a "before" photograph of my bathroom, but I do have a video.

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v1...t=VID00001.mp4

This is the "after" picture. (taken before the grab bars were installed)

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v1...t=DSC04169.jpg

I'll have to go clean up my bathroom and take another "after" picture with the grab bars on the wall.

here's a couple of crappy ipod pictures of what the grab bars in my shower look like. (if the picture has a tape measure in it, I was using the tape measure to give you an idea of the scale for where the bars were placed, or the scale of the tiles)

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v1...7.jpg&newest=1

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v1...0.jpg&newest=1

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v1...2.jpg&newest=1


I'm pretty sure it's ceramic tile. Not all that expensive. Cant remember how much it was per tile, but it wasnt too bad. We had a decorator help us pick out the tile color to go with the paint color that we ended up using for the entire house. (we also carpeted the house, so we made sure the tile would match where it transitions into the carpeted areas) The big pieces of tile on the wall are 12x12, and the shower floor tile is 3x3. The grout is a matching color and it's sanded grout.

It's a basic shower, nothing exciting in there. But it's so much roomier and easier to maneuver in than my old fiberglass insert. Feels huge. I love my grab bars. I wanted grab bars that didnt look hospital-ish, so I splurged and got brushed nickel. They look like towel bars.


I wanted the shower to look like it's always been here, and I wanted it in colors that would match anything we used. We splurged a little on the shower doors because I wanted the slightly higher end look, and figured the doors could be kind of showy. (the glass is called "glue chip". Makes me think of a window that's been frosted and frozen over by ice rain)

hope that helps with ideas.