The difference between a disabled person staying in a beloved home or moving to assisted-living housing often depends upon having a wheelchair accessible kitchen and bathroom. The topic here is kitchens. Remodeling kitchens for disabled cooks isn’t cheap, but neither is assisted housing or in-home help. For a year’s worth of many of those services kitchens for the disabled can be created, enabling independent living within the family home.
Let the kitchen come to you
What can you do when you can’t move around the kitchen with a walker or wheelchair, reach into cupboards, or move a hot pot from stove to countertop? Remodel the kitchen so that those accouterments to come to you! Let’s look at the major components that need improvement. Keep in mind knee space below most elements.
- Remove obstacles: Kitchen islands inhibit turning, passing other people, and opening cabinet doors and drawers. Sell the island, move it against a wall, or replace it with an island with no lower shelves. The floor must be firm, slip-resistant, and, of course, liquid-resistant. It must allow room to turn a wheelchair or walker.
- Open up under-countertop areas: Any under counter cabinets need access on at least one side. Use full-suspension kitchen drawer systems instead of shelves, and use special-purpose organizers within the drawers. Organizers include utensils, spices, canned goods, pot-and-pan drawers, and auto-lifting mixer/processor units. Consider removing all lower cabinet doors, which may have the benefit of forced tidiness!
- Movers and shakers: Well, actually just movers. Sinks andwheelchair accessible cooktops that raise and lower hydraulically. Ditto for wall cabinets and even shelves within a cabinet. Yes, a microwave that raises and lowers. Learn to love the words “hydraulic,” “pneumatic,” and “fully extends.” “Lazy Susan” is another good word, especially if lower cupboard shelves have such turntables so that any item can be front and center.
Reorganize or retro-fit what stays
Almost any kitchen can use a bit–or a lot–of better organization. The key to kitchens for disabled householders is to keep things low and in front. Some side-by-side refrigerators have roll-out shelves plus big door-mounted shelves in both ‘fridge and freezer. Rev-A-Shelf pull-out cup racks can be mounted under upper cabinets. Have a heat-proof sturdy surface to receive hot pots at cooktop level–perhaps a rimmed pull-out board. Replace some lower cupboards with slide-out pantry or trash units, retaining the front doors. Use lever-type handles for doors to other rooms. An unintended consequence of a wheelchair accessible kitchen remodel is that other householders will wonder why all kitchens aren’t designed this way! That, and the advantage of “wheelchair accessible kitchen” in a future resale ad.
