Retrofit Your Home for Accessibility

Here is a room-by-room checklist of steps you can take if someone in your family is impacted by a lasting injury, disability, or age-related physical challenges. Many of these improvements will also make your home safer and more comfortable for able-bodied residents and guests alike, as well as potentially increasing its resale value.

The suggestions listed below in the category “Immediate/Affordable” are simple to implement by a do-it-yourselfer or a handyman, or in a single trip by a contractor, electrician or plumber. The ideas noted in the “Long-Term/Costlier” category are intended to address serious, ongoing conditions and involve more planning, permits, and a range of professionals to make large-scale or structural changes to your home.

Entryways/ Stairs

Immediate/Affordable

• Be sure that there’s ample lighting at all the home’s entry doors. A motion sensor light can be ideal for this purpose.
• Remove any trip hazards, like stray water cans or cracked pavers, from walkways.
• Add a bench or shelf near the door as a resting place for visitors and packages.
• Add a handrail on the inside stair wall to supplement the outside hand rail.
• Add non-skid treads or a secured-in-place runner to eliminate a trip hazard on uncarpeted stairs.
• Replace standard switches with easier-to-use rocker switches at entryways and throughout the home.

Long-Term/Costlier 

• Speak to a qualified remodeler, especially one with a Certified Aging in Place Specialization (CAPS), about creating a zero-step entry, adding a ramp to your home and widening doors and hallways to accommodate a wheelchair user.
• Add a three-way switch at the top and bottom of staircases for safe footing in both directions.

Sleeping and Living Areas

Immediate/Affordable

• Move someone in a wheelchair, using a walker or lacking good balance to a first-floor bedroom. If you don’t have a readily available space, consider adapting any private first-level room with a smoke detector and window to bedroom use.
• Allow room near the bed for a walker or wheelchair.
• Change a step-in shower threshold to roll-in access.
• Change an older, pre-code shower valve to a pressure-balanced, anti-scald model.
• Consider installing two showerheads for two users so that one will always be in a seated user position.
•  Consider one of the newer medicine cabinets with cooling capacity for medications requiring refrigeration. Robern offers one through its M Series line.
• Change at least one vanity to a lower-height, roll-under model for a wheelchair user.
• Round the corners on all countertops to minimize impact injuries.
• Maximize the color contrast between vanity cabinet and countertops.