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.
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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
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