Background
We first met the Watkins family in 2011, when their active, full house needed its basement finished for additional living space.
Fast forward almost a decade, and their lifestyle has changed…and so did their living space. After selling the family home, they moved into a condominium community offering main floor living and significantly less upkeep. Their new home was in a location convenient to their everyday living, but needed some attention in parts that had become very outdated.
As they considered their options for the master bathroom renovation, they kept returning to one important concept: accessibility for aging-in-place living.
The Challenge
In this particular home, the existing master bathroom was originally set up as two separate rooms. Like we said, extremely dated!
Our objective was to bring the two spaces together for a single, functional space that allowed for helpful features to encourage long-term accessibility and independence.
Enter The Lifestyle Group
From a design perspective, we immediately removed the dividing wall and the toilet from its current location. This gave us room to create an accessible vanity in an open space in which a wheelchair could roll up with ease.
We also simplified the tub to save space and meet the client’s needs. We added a handheld personal shower attachment to the tub in the event someone ever needed help bathing.
The bathroom’s shower was able to remain in place, which helped save costs. Finally, we added a useful utility cabinet and a clear path to the toilet area that’s easy to reach from the master bedroom. Additional accessories and finishing touches include open shelving, helpful yet elegant grab bars and decorative mirrors that make the space warm and inviting.
Conclusion
Accessible does not mean institutional!
Your home doesn’t have to feel like a hospital room with the wide array of helpful and stylish products available to support aging in place in the home you love, and this project is a great example of that concept.
In fact, we often hear from happy clients that their decorative grab bars give the appearance of fancy towel racks that just so happen to be able to bear the weight of those who need it.
A common challenge on these types of projects is often carving out enough space for effective wheelchair access. Here, fortunately, some of the space’s necessary rearranging gave us an opportunity to widen the pathways.
It’s our hope this project shows you can have the best of both worlds: an attractive master bathroom that includes accessibility, boosts functionality and improves the lifestyle of the family using the space on a daily basis!
To learn more about our aging in place options and available features, reach out to The Lifestyle Group today.