When it’s time to do a little more planning, we have done the simple adaptations to make our homes immediately safer for everyone to live in, then we can set some priorities for what comes next.
It’s great to have nice, wide, walkways between rooms, within rooms. We can do that by rearranging furniture to open up paths. Or, if we want to involve a designer contractor, we can look at widening certain doorways, also removing non-load bearing walls.
Often, a helpful easy change is to put glass panels into interior doors so that you are prevented for knocking someone over on the other side! Accessiblity changes that help everyone when you remodel are lowering the switches for lights down to 48″ above the floor, moving the lower outlets up to 27-28″, saving people from having to stoop, making them reachable by someone in a wheelchair. “Rocker” switches are all I ever install in my remodels, I think they are more elegant looking, they are much easier to operate, even with a fist.
Installing Sola Tubes or SkyLights in dark hallways in the middle of a house can do wonders to improve available light prevent falls, as can adding hrails to hallways.
But the best thing you can do it talk it over, talk to everyone you know, make a plan, make the change priorities that you need, will give you comfort. So that when you sit down, or walk through or begin a task in your home, you can always say, Ah, that was easy!
