The Easiest Ways to Make Your Home More Wheelchair Accessible
If a relative uses a wheelchair and wants to come visit, or if someone in your family suddenly finds they need to use one, even temporarily, you can start looking around your home with fresh eyes. Is the place available? Is everything a person needs within reach? While you may not have time to completely transform an extreme style home to make it shine, an example of perfect accessibility, if their arrival is imminent, there are some steps you can take to make it as welcoming and welcoming as possible pretty quickly.
Measure doorways
According to South Bay Residential , which maintains a landing page with specifics for homebuyers to look out for when considering whether a property is wheelchair accessible, a door must be at least 32 inches wide to facilitate wheelchair access. but convenient passage is obtained in doorways which are not less than 36 inches wide. A standard residential doorway is 23 to 30 inches wide, so measure yours to make sure someone in a wheelchair can walk through them at all. You may need to remove the trim on the doorways to allow passage. It’s up to you whether you want to keep it for a short time or call in a professional and remake the doors in your house for a longer period.
You can use offset hinges to keep your doors from touching the doorway, which can increase the gap to an inch, or take the doors off completely and cut them off. Be aware that if there are sharp turns before or after a doorway, even 32 inches may not be enough, so a professional doorway widening may be in order if wheelchair use is long-term.
Consider Your Lighting
If you can, lower the position of the lamps because glare is a real problem for people in wheelchairs. This should be relatively easy, and when the person in the wheelchair arrives at your home, ask them to take you on a tour and point out any places where they see light bulb glare or other lighting problems. Setting the lamps at the desired height is an easy way to help them feel more comfortable.
However, they still need to be able to turn on those lights, so consider where your switches are. There are many options for turning the lights on and off that do not require the use of switches in high places. Smart plugs are relatively inexpensive and allow you to turn lights on and off with your phone, or even by voice using an Echo or Siri-enabled device. Grab a bunch of these outlets so that all your electronics can be easily controlled remotely. Talk to your guest or family member using a wheelchair to make sure the smart adaptations are properly installed on their personal devices and they know how to use them. Wrapping rope around the lamp cord can also be an easy way to make lighting more accessible.
Check out your carpets
Before a visitor or family member temporarily uses a wheelchair, you may not have the time or reason to redo the floor throughout the house. Under the Americans with Disabilities Act, any ADA-compliant flooring must be “stable, durable, and non-slip.” According to Flooring Inc. , if you have tiles, vinyl, laminate, parquet or rubber at home, you are already ahead of the curve. What you need to pay attention to is a carpet with a high pile. If any of your rugs are particularly luxurious or plush, roll them up for the duration of your guest’s stay. The more flat, smooth surfaces, the more mobile they can be.
Get rid of obstacles
The hallway table with family photos is beautiful most of the time, but it can be a headache for someone in a wheelchair to move around. According to South Bay Residential, an entryway should be at least 36 inches wide, but 48 inches is the ideal minimum. Look around your home and identify items that may be taking up valuable space, especially in hallways. Baskets, side tables, and shoe racks that may seem unimportant to you can eat up inches, which is the difference between a struggle and ease for someone who navigates your space in a wheelchair. Put these things in a closet or in storage for a while. (Even low-hanging images can be difficult to navigate, so move them up if you can.)
Rearrange commonly used items
Go to the kitchen and bathroom. Everything that is used daily in the closet should be moved to where a person can reach it. Cups, plates, toothpaste, or writing utensils are among the items that should be moved below and made easily accessible. Place snacks and drinks on the lower shelves in the refrigerator, and move rarely used delicacies to the top.
These are not ideal or long-term solutions, but in the short term they will help you make your home more welcoming while you work on a larger renovation if the person in the wheelchair is going to be there for an extended period of time. .