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