100% Handicap Accessible home: Getting started

Disclaimer- I am not an Engineer, Architect or trained designer of anything. This series of Blog posts is intended solely for informational purposes, not educational.

Hello, and welcome to my blog.  This series is about creating a 100% Handicap Accessible home, from start to finish, however the ideas can be helpful for modifying a current home, or just building your home so that should something happen in the future where you need accessibility, you won’t have to move or invest a lot of money to remodel.

My husband, David, and I had purchased a lot back in 2008 and set about designing a house. This was not my first go around with designing, but it was my husbands. He is a dreamer, a real big dreamer.  So step one was for me to set down with him and let him tell me every possible thing he could think of that he possibly wanted in our new home. In his usual style, it was three floors, two kitchens, with a grand staircase and way over the top.  This was fine, because only by seeing everything laid out did he realize how unrealistic it actually was, and it let him come around to the idea of what he REALLY wanted on his own.  I did not want this house to become a war of ‘he wants- she wants’.  So gradually, and many sheets of extra-large drawing paper later, we had it down to a more reasonable, and affordable, size. We also had to work within a set of parameters set out by the neighborhood for size, exterior, door placement, etc.

            Once we had achieved a reasonable basic house, I set about using the principles of ‘Universal Design’ as set out by the North Carolina State University. You can find the principles here: http://www.ncsu.edu/ncsu/design/cud/ .

           The largest hang up was that David did not want our house to LOOK like a handicapped person lived here.  It was partially because it is in an upscale neighborhood and would affect re-sale value, but also because he had only ever been exposed to homes that were heavily modified to accommodate walkers or wheelchairs.  I must say that starting with Universal Design is how I feel EVERY house should be built. The concept that a home be easily adaptable to any situation that might arise, be it age or accident, would solve a lot of problems before they start.

           Building this way enables building to scale. In other words, a four foot wide hall path doesn’t look out of place, if all the pathways are four foot wide.  A 36’ interior door does not look out of place if all the interior doors are 36’.  Most people who come into our home never notice the modifications until they are pointed out to them.  The largest of these adaptations was also the largest bone of contention between David and me.  With EDS, I dislocate everything very easily, including fingers, wrists, and shoulders.  With this in mind, I did NOT want any upper kitchen cabinets.  They are essentially useless for me.  He couldn’t wrap his mind around the idea, mainly because he’d never seen anything like it.  We also have an amazing view of the Missouri River and our state capitol building.  My argument was ‘I can’t use them, I don’t want them, and why block the view?”  His argument was ‘You have to have them! It’s weird, and it will hurt resale value’.  Luckily for me, our cabinet maker was set up with 3D design software.  He put it in the way I wanted it, complete with windows, and then let us ‘walk’ through it.  Once David saw the windows with the amazing views, he never grouched again.  It also had something to do with the fact that I told him my cooking and cleaning up days would be over, as I couldn’t get down or replace any items from the upper shelves, and he is very fond of my cooking and spoiled in not having to clean up.

Some things to think about to create a handicap friendly home:

• 1.       Minimize hallways
• 2.       Consider turn radius
• 3.       Bathroom/shower options
• 4.       Counters and counter tops
• 5.       Doors and doorways and thresholds
• 6.       Flooring
• 7.       Garage space
• 8.       Driveway, sidewalks and landscaping

I will break these down into separate posts, so that we can cover them in depth and add links, pictures and other helpful information. Feel free to ask questions or post comments.

Thanks for reading!

TH

100% Handicap Accessible home, Design: Hallways and Turn Radius

Disclaimer- I am not an Engineer, Architect or trained designer of anything. This series of Blog posts is intended solely for informational purposes, not educational.

A major component of the basic design is drawing out the floor plan.  You have to start somewhere; collecting information is a good place to start.  Educate yourself on things, get out the measuring tape and get busy.  Measure your current door width, your current hallways, shower, windows, size of your washer and dryer, the dishwasher, etc.  Why?  Because you really can’t make an accurate floor plan without knowing these things; for example: how much space do you need to put in the kitchen area for a dishwasher?  

http://www.bosch-home.com/us/products/dishwashers/shop-all-dishwashers/SHX3AR72UC.html?source=browse

This is the dishwasher we chose. The link will take you to the product page, on which you can click through the “Specifications”.  That will tell you the width, depth and height as well as plumbing and electoral requirements.  Most are a standard size, so you don’t necessarily have to pick a specific unit, just the type and standard sizing for what you want. This one is a 24”, pretty standard, but there are 18” models.  We did a lot of research on dishwashers before we decided on this one.  Look for the blog post ‘Appliances, what and why?’ to read about why we chose the ones we did for our home.

Now, it’s on to minimize hallways; if you have to have one make sure it’s 4 foot wide. I know it seems like a lot, but turn around room when you are in a power wheelchair, wheelchair, use a walker or crutches, is critical for independence.  Here is where ‘building to scale’ comes into play.  If all the areas are 4 wide, none will look out of place. As I said, this includes between the counters in the kitchen. It is very trying to try and cook sitting sideways in the chair because you don’t have room to do otherwise.  The simple act of retrieving something from the refrigerator and placing it on the counter becomes a 5 point turn and a balancing act to keep spilling at a minimum when you are without adequate room.

This is the only ‘real’ hallway in our house.  It’s very short and it is 4 foot wide.  I can comfortably go in and out of each room without banging into walls or door frames.   There are other areas that act like hallways, such as between counters or where the furniture is placed.  When you are sketching out a room, think about how you are going to put furniture in it. How you are going to get into the room, get into the closet, access a dresser drawer. Most modern furniture is overly large, so keep that in mind.  Measure your bed to be sure you know exactly how much room you need to think about as a minimum.   

Turn Radius. Keep in mind places where a turnaround regularly occurs. Places like the kitchen, bathrooms, and closet areas. Kneehole areas are great in bathrooms, (kneeholes are where there is not a cabinet under the sink so the wheelchair can scoot right up to it). In the kitchen, setting back the cabinet under the sink allows more room and using a farm sink style kitchen sink lowers the height without looking out of place.  Cutting the corners of the cabinets at 45 degree angles increases the turning room available as well as toning down those pesky corners that love to leave bruises when run into. Using a cook top, instead of a range allows the area under the cook top to be set back slightly, making access easier, and provides room to store the cookware in a handy location. These kitchen modifications make my life in a wheelchair a lot easier, without looking obviously handicap accessible.  We have no upper kitchen cabinets. Shocking, I know, but a little logical thought and you can understand why.  Simply put, they are out of reach for a person in a chair. What use is it to have a glass cabinet where you cannot get yourself a glass? A decent depth drawer and some dividers makes retrieving a glass easy, placed between the refrigerator and the dishwasher makes it handy.

Here are the ADA Guidelines, as copied from their webpage:

ADA Guidelines: Clear floor space

A clear space with minimum dimensions of at least 30" x 48" must be provided to accommodate a single wheelchair. This space must be designed for a forward or parallel approach to the equipment. Sometimes that clear space will be located under current fixtures, as long as there is enough room and space to allow legs to move freely under those spaces when sitting in a wheelchair.

ADA Guidelines: Rotating Space

A single wheelchair must rotate freely inside a bathroom. For this kind of motion at least 60" in diameter is required to complete a 180 degree turn. As well as the clear space, sometimes that required space could be computed beneath fixtures.

If you are handy with math tools, such as a compass, you can measure this out down to the inch on your drawing.  If not, wing it and leave room for adjustments when it does get entered into the CAD system.  I used a simple 1 inch= 1 foot, because I don’t like making things more complicated than they already are.  If you want to, do it differently, just check your work.  I do advocate having your plan put into the CAD system, though it can cost $500-$1,000. We had ours done at a locally owned lumber yard that had a deal set up.  The deal was, pay for the CAD blueprints, then when you purchase the building supplies from them, they refunded the CAD costs on a percentage basis.  In the end we paid $700 and were refunded $390 of it.   Having it in the CAD system should catch any errors and give you the opportunity to correct them.  

That is all for this time, if you have questions, please ask! I will address any that are posted.  

Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed it and will read the rest of the series.

TH

Going to try this thing again.

I tried blogging once before, and didn’t make a go of it, largely because typing is such a difficult thing for me to do. My wonderful children are always finding ways to make my life easier, and in this case my youngest purchased the Dragon Naturally Speaking software for me. She has pointed out to me on numerous occasions that I should be blogging. Not sure why, but for her, here it goes again.

My last blog post was back when I had bi-lateral retina surgery to repair lattice degeneration in 2010. Hard to believe it’s been nearly four years since then, but it has. So far, so good as far as the eyes are concerned, though I cannot wear my contact lenses like I used to. No matter, however, since I’m home 90% of the time now. (I hate driving in glasses!)

Part of the reason I stopped blogging last time, besides the whole typing issue, is because I don’t really want to TALK about Ehlers Danlos Syndrome. I just felt like it was a complaint blog, no matter how factual and practical I made it. So, from here forward this is NOT a blog about EDS, but rather a life lived despite having a disability. I’m sure there will be occasions where I wander into the realm of what a pain in the rear EDS can be, or tosh about a doctor or test that was particularly negative, but for the most part this is just going to be about how I try to live, try to have fun, try to maintain a sense of humor and try to make sense of my life the way it is now. On that note, life at the moment consists of my husband (David) and me living in our (modified) dream home.

Over the next few posts, I will do a post completion commentary on our experience building a 100% Handicap Accessible home.