Aging In Place Renovations
Aging in place successfully requires preparing your home with accessibility and safety in mind.
Home Modifications
We all get older, but if you take steps now to ensure that you can age in place in your home, you can avoid many of the worst difficulties aging can bring to your quality of life. Aging in place successfully requires preparing your home with accessibility and safety in mind—and that includes the places where you enter and exit.
Contact Alliance Home Improvements today to start making a plan that ensures your home is safe and accessible. Universal or inclusive design is the idea that buildings should be safe and usable by everyone and easily accessible by the elderly and people with disabilities. We have compiled a list of basic universal design renovations that could be undertaken by anyone, at any time, to make their home safe, accessible and comfortable.
Bathroom Renovations for Aging in Place
Remodeling a bathroom for aging in place takes planning and effort. From access, to safety, to ease of use, there are quite a few changes involved. But for anyone who wants to age in place it can be very worthwhile to have a bathroom that is comfortable and safe to use easily as needs change. If your primary bathroom is upstairs, you may want to consider adding a full bath on the ground floor.
With the professional help of Alliance Home Improvements, you can convert part of a bedroom, sun porch, patio, office, closet or another small room that isn’t essential into a large, wheelchair or walker accessible bathroom. With this new, or existing bathroom we can install a curbless shower or a step-in tub, add seats, stools and benches as well as grab bars and railings. We can replace your old toilet with a new, taller unit and replace your under-sink box vanity with one that accommodates a wheelchair. And very importantly, we can widen the door to the bathroom to 36” to accommodate a wheelchair or walker.
Entryway Renovations for Aging in Place
Alliance Home Improvements recommends several basic accessibility modifications to your home’s entryway to ensure a safe and comfortable aging in place scenario. At least one entryway should be covered with an awning or overhang and have a wheelchair ramp (see below) in addition to or instead of steps. The doorway and hallways also need to be wide enough to accommodate a wheelchair.
Since doorknobs require you to grab and twist them at the same time, it may be necessary to replace knobs with lever handles. The doorbell may also need to be lowered from its standard location to accommodate people with difficulty in raising their arms. And slippery tile flooring in the entryway should be replaced with vinyl or hardwood.
Tasteful residential bathroom redesign for aging in place with wheelchair in Morristown, TN.
Impaired mobility is a very common symptom of getting older and wiser.
Basic residential wheelchair ramp built with pressure treated lumber in Baileyton, TN
Kitchen designed for wheelchair accessibility including adjustable height countertops in Kingsport, TN.
Wheel Chair Ramp Design and Installation
Impaired mobility is a very common symptom of getting older and wiser. While some folks are able to walk unassisted well into their 90s, others require the use of a wheelchair to reclaim their independence and age in place comfortably. It’s wise to consider installing a wheel chair ramp before you suddenly need one. In fact, if you live alone, even a temporary setback such as a broken ankle may cause you great difficulty. Alliance Home Improvements can build you an attractive wheelchair access ramp to make it easy to get in and out of your house. We’ll build it to ADA specifications and we’ll make it attractive so that it fits in with your landscaping.
Wheelchairs require 36” of access to fit through a door. This will dictate where the wheelchair ramp will be placed. If you have an older home and none of your doors are three feet wide, Alliance Home Improvement can even widen your door frame and install a new security door as part of the process.
Code requires that the ramp be no more than 30” in height from the ground and have a slope of 1:12 or less. The slope means that the ramp cannot rise more than one foot for every 12″ in height ensuring that you can actually wheel up and down safely. The layout and design of the ramp depends on the layout of your house and its landscaping. Alliance Home Improvements can help you determine the best design for the ramp to ensure your safety while preserving the outward appearance of your property. There’s certainly no rule that says a wheelchair ramp can’t be an attractive part of your entryway.
Kitchen Renovations for Aging in Place
Improving a kitchen’s overall functionality for an aging in place home will look similar to an upgrade if it is done correctly. The best kitchen remodels makes the space more useful for everyone, especially for a resident who may possibly have limited mobility, motor skills or other physical constraints.
An aging in place residence should have additional clearance around all doorways and thoroughfares. In most homes, these passageways are only 24 inches, which do not allow access for a walker. Proper access for wheelchairs requires 42 to 48 inches of clearance for all pathways. Doorways should be at least 36 inches wide for the same reasons. The first priority of an aging-in-place kitchen remodel is to widen the often narrow space between aisles.
Secondly, we look at kitchen flooring and select safer, non-slippery options like vinyl, wood or linoleum to replace tile or carpeting. We also try get rid of any door curbs that separate the kitchen from the rest of the house. Ideally, the entrance to the kitchen should be flat with no “speed bumps” between rooms. Alternatively, we can install a slope that will ease the transition from room to room and eliminate the possibility of slips and falls.
Next we will look at the existing cabinets and (unless you’re planning an entire kitchen re-do) simply work with what we have. For aging-in place, the top cabinets should not be difficult to reach and are frequently lowered between 5 and 7 inches (We’ll install trim at the ceiling so the shift won’t be noticeable). Bottom cabinets should be replaced with drawers whenever possible. If that’s not an option, then we can install sliding drawers inside your existing cabinets to make accessing the things all the way in the back easy without having to crouch or kneel. Lastly, we’ll look at how we can make the sink more accessible, either by lowering it or providing under-counter wheelchair access. Height adjustable countertops are available to suit a range of needs within one family.
Everyone requires something slightly different, and we at Alliance Home Improvement know that the best way to honor the aging in place resident is to customize your kitchen solutions to your specific needs. Contact us today to discuss your plans. We will do our best to make the project as seamless and unobtrusive as possible.
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