How Can I Make My Home Wheelchair Friendly?

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Are you looking to turn your beautiful home into an inclusive and easily accessible safe haven for all? The best way to start is to make it wheelchair friendly for the physically disabled so that they can also have fun with you at your home! There are many easy and simple ways to make your home wheelchair-friendly, all you need is a big heart and a bunch of easily available tools!

So let’s dive in and turn your home into a spacious place for your friends and family who use mobility aids.

Make Your Home Wheelchair Friendly With These Super Easy Guides!

Let’s have a look at the easiest and simplest way possible through which you can make your home the most easily accessible and spacious place for your wheelers!

1. Clearing The Pathways

The best starting point to make your home wheelchair friendly is to start decluttering. Living spaces like the living room, hall, foyer, corridors, etc. need to be free of bulky furniture and have clear pathways so that the wheelchairs can maneuver around easily.

2. Add Ramps & Thresholds

A game-changing technique to make your home more wheelchair-friendly is to add ramps and thresholds at the entrances and other areas to make it more accessible to wheelchair users.

This helps wheelchair users to easily navigate through the house and become more independent in their movements. There are many types of wheelchair ramps and thresholds that you can use to add an aesthetically pleasing look to your home while making it more accessible.

Choose your favorite material, colors, and design to suit your home’s interior and you’ll be good to go!

3. Adjust The Doorways

If you have narrow doorways through which wheelchairs cannot easily pass, then it is time to revamp those too! Make sure that all the doorways in your house, including the main entrance, are spacious and wide enough that a wheelchair can easily pass through without any help from another individual.

If you want, you can also add offset hinges to increase the opening width of the doors so that you can widen them up when a wheelchair needs to pass through. However, that limits the independence of wheelchair users, which was basically the whole point. To give more ease of movement and independence to the users, the best way is to widen the doorways.

4. Easily Accessible Bathrooms

Now this part can be a little tricky but it is equally essential if you really want to make your home comfortable and safe for wheelchair users. Bathrooms are often quite small and crowded, especially if you do not own a relatively big house. However, people with mobility issues need to be able to use the bathroom and for that, the wheelchair needs to get inside the bathroom.

That being said, there should be enough space to move the wheelchair around to allow for a smooth transition from the wheelchair to the toilet, and also enough space to park the wheelchair in a corner.

To make your bathroom spacious and easily accessible, you can declutter and add grab bars close to the toilet and other areas for easy and smooth movement and transition. A shower bench is another way to make your bathroom more accessible. Consider adding grab bars in the shower too and make sure that you install a handheld showerhead.

To ensure the user’s safety, you can also add a bunch of anti-slip mats to minimize any fall hazards.

5. Work On The Flooring

The flooring ought to be non-slippery yet smooth. Make sure that you eliminate carpets from your house because they hinder and slow down the movement of the wheelchairs and the users will need to put more force into moving themselves which will affect their comfort.

Make sure that any loose wires and cables are cleared away so as to ensure maximum safety. These contribute to tripping hazards and can cause serious damage if not taken care of.

6. Lights & Switches Adjustment

Light switches and other switchboards are installed at lower heights to make them easily accessible for wheelchair users. Apart from that, there should be ample and proper lighting throughout your house so that people can move around easily.

7. Modify The Furniture

The furniture in your home should also be easily reachable by handicapped people, therefore, it is advised to lower the heights of furniture like tables and desks so that they can easily be reached while sitting down.

This small gesture would definitely boost the independence and comfort of the wheelchair users in your home.

8. Modify The Kitchen

If you are modifying your home for yourself, then it is mandatory to modify the kitchen to suit your needs. Lower the height of your countertops and consider installing easily reachable cabinets at appropriate heights. To make your kitchen more wheelchair-friendly, you can also add pull-out shelves here and there to store your kitchen items within easy reach.

Lastly, you can also add front controls on your kitchen appliances to make them easier to use– giving wheelchair users more independence in the kitchen.

Final Thoughts

If you are big on inclusivity, then this is your chance to surpass all expectations and make your home a beautiful haven for wheelchair users. This easy guide will help you in making your home wheelchair-friendly, and for supplies, you can always count on the best of the best Gilani Mobility!