Is your house comfortable? Does it “work” for you or do you adapt to how it is built? Whether you’re a baby boomer facing the realities of aging, a new mom with your hands full, or someone with a physical disability, there are simple and inexpensive ways to make your home more comfortable and functional. Here are some ideas:

Throughout the house doorknobs are exchanged for door levers. It is so simple and inexpensive to change a door knob to a door lever, but if you have arthritis or weak hands, turning a door knob can be very painful, if not impossible. Plus, if you’re a new mom with a baby in your arms, it’s a lot harder to turn that knob. Maybe he just has his arms full of groceries and it’s hard to turn that knob. Can you imagine if you have arthritis in your hands and you just walk around your house and every time you knock on the doors it hurts? If you replaced that knob with a lever, you can touch it with your elbow. The arthritis problem and all the others are gone.

In your bathroom there are several things you can do. One is to install grab bars in the shower or near the toilet. This is great if you have weak knees. I have a client who had a Roman tub and she was afraid to trade it in for a shower because she didn’t want to lose the value of the house. I asked him, “What is the value of knee surgery? You are going to hit your knee every day.” She switched to a shower. She didn’t have to hit her knee every day to get her feet in the shower.

You can also put a seat and a hand shower in the shower. You can go to a home improvement store and buy a seat for as little as $20 and a hand sprayer for another $20. This allows you to sit in the shower and shampoo your hair or shave your legs. If you have weak knees, it takes the stress off them. If you have trouble feeling dizzy or dizzy when standing up, this would eliminate the problem.

The shower or bathroom floor can often be a hazard in and of itself. With all the soap and water it becomes slippery and you can lose your footing quickly. There are several solutions for this, from quick and easy to a little more expensive. We’ve all seen those little stickers you put on the bottom of your bathtub. Put them on, it’s a cheap fix! If you are redoing your shower, you should use smaller tiles on the floor. It will cost a bit more to make this tile smaller, but if you use an inch or two tile on the floor, all that extra grout will give it extra grip.

You may think that the kitchen is an area that would not be easy to change. Is not true! The easy solution is to change the handle on your sink to a single handle design. The two knob design poses the same problem as the door knob. It will be easier for someone who has arthritis or just has their hands full with a new baby to be able to use one touch to control the faucet. Going a step further, I just saw in a showroom that they have a new faucet and you can touch anywhere on the faucet to turn it on or off.

Another thing is to make sure the cabinet handles are low enough for you to reach them. I’m only 5’2″, so half my upper cabinet space is wasted as far as I’m concerned because I can’t reach it. If you’re in a wheelchair, you need to make sure you have plenty of lower cabinet space. space for you to get out and cook.

Here are some simple and inexpensive solutions to make your home more comfortable.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *