Designing Accessible Homes for Everyone 🏡 Aging in Place & People with Disabilities

This video covers how to make your home barrier-free and overall design a universally accessible home. Interior design and home decor can be both beautiful and functional, which is important when accounting for aging in place or people with disabilities. There are tips in here for everyone, but let me know what stands out to you!

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⏱ Timestamps:
00:00 - Universal Design Accessibility
02:07 - Thresholds, Levels, & Ramps
04:12 - Showers
06:50 - Roll-Under Sinks
08:40 - Storage
10:05 - Heights
13:02 - Space Planning
13:58 - Smart Home Features
15:30 - Textures

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[stuckinmopro]

I’ve had the majority of my house redone and something that really helped was to leave one of my old wheelchairs for the workers. Whenever they weren’t quite sure of where to install certain items they would get in the chair, move around and try to reach items. This crew was wonderful in making sure that everything was reachable and I’d be able to navigate.

[elijahculper]

I work in home healthcare. I’ve seen a ton of homes that run the gamut in terms of style. Prolly the prettiest home I’ve ever worked in was a house that a couple built after the wife found out she had Parkinson’s. The level of care that was put into making sure that she’d still be able to be at home as her disease progressed was stunning. They had countertops that could be lowered to accommodate someone who was wheelchair bound, wide hallways with big pieces of artwork that made it feel almost like a museum, floors with traction for a wheelchair or walker, a gorgeous front yard with a ramp and hanging flowers that could be lowered so the wife could get to them to take care of them, a big, screened in patio with more live plants in vases chosen to be easy to reach from a wheelchair, a big bathroom with a high toilet that has space around it so we could help her, a walk in shower with a soft bench so she could easily get into the shower and have a comfortable place to sit, bright rooms with lots of natural light to keep her oriented to time and reduce hallucinations, their microwave was a drawer at waist height so she could reach down into it instead of up, no bumps in doorways for floor materials changing. Just everything was made with her condition in mind. There’s no need to sacrifice beauty for accessibility. And there is something truly beautiful about design that empowers people to stay in their homes with maximal autonomy.

[bluecopperdesign]

Nick thank you so much for having me on your channel, our convo was so fun and enlightening. Im overwhelmed by all the kind responses, thank you all for listening to this topic!

[beathinks]

I’m a disabled 26 year old who (currently) can still walk, but my mobility is steadily decreasing.
It means a lot to have a creator (especially one who [as far as I know] isn’t disabled) take the time to learn about and share with us how we can make our homes more accessible while still keeping it homey.

[bethfarnsworth]

Long time watcher, first time commenter. I just want to say thank you so so much for this video. I kind if choked up a bit because of how unexpected it was, but how seen I felt. My life completely changed when I turned 27 and I suddenly became disabled and it completely turned my life and the way I live and see the world on its head. Accessibility is so so important to help people feel like they are part of society and even more important in the home where you want to rest and get a break from life. You want your home to be your safe place. I just really appreciate the thoughtfulness of this topic❤️

[Mary-wgtj]

I had aging parents and a husband in a wheelchair. I found that a toilet seat bidet was really helpful for maintaining some semblance of dignity for them. I found the ones that run on electricity really work the best- you get warm water and a warm seat. Washes and dries - can also come in really handy if you have back spasm issues or arthritic hands. I have the Biobidet and cannot recommend it enough.

[MrShaeliza]

This is HUGE 🙌 the first video I’ve EVER come across discussing accessibility design, and you did it for the layperson, not just for those in the industry. You made your universal design video universally designed lol 😂

[nicroach]

As a neurodivergent person, thank you for mentioning the rounded corners and possibility of overwhelm. Both are very important.

[bonnie_rose]

Thank you so much for talking about accessibility! It’s a topic people typically don’t think about until it affects them. As a 30-something with long-COVID, you never know what your needs will become. The future isn’t certain, and the more we design with accessibility in mind, the more we design for EVERYONE. Even typical people benefit from accessibility in design.

[nogames]

As a person who is visually impaired, I would like to point out the importance of good lighting. Also, things like skylights help bring in a great deal of light. And some thing I have noticed people seem to forget, sometimes is rails on stairs. Even if it's just a couple stairs, a rail is handy.

[StevieMcQween]

My parents have a sunken living room that's one step down, and it's amazed me over the years how many people trip and don't see the step at all. If you have sunken rooms that are one or two steps down, you may want those steps to be different colors from the flooring so it's a visual cue to visitors. I've noticed this especially with those who are aging, and even if we've mentioned it a couple times, they often forget. My parents also renovated their bathroom so they can age in place, and they added a larger curb for the bathtub so it would be easier to sit on and then lower yourself into. The accessibility bars they added in their bathroom were reinforced under the tile and matched the shower accessories and towel bars so everything looks sleek and cohesive.

I think it's important to have accessible home decor that also looks good. No one wants to feel like they living a nursing home, they want to feel like they're in their home that's meant and designed for them. Thank you for covering this topic! I would be curious to hear more from you about home design for ADHD and autism.

[rickaredough]

Great info! I am a disabled architect and you two did a great job conveying the needs and design solutions very easily!

[kbal]

I've been getting around in a manual wheelchair for 16 years, after becoming paralysed at 40, so aging and disability are both a thing for me. Thanks for discussing it, universal design is important for everyone.

[nogames]

I worked in physical therapy for 25 years. It is heartbreaking to see somebody have to move out of their home because it is not accessible. If you plan on aging in place do the work now on your house, don't wait until it's absolutely necessary. It doesn't have to end up looking like a nursing home. bathrooms almost always are the main culprit.

[elemore]

Great info! A tip about designing for someone with dementia—rugs, or patterned carpet, can sometimes be confusing for a person with dementia/Alzheimer’s to walk on. My grandpa would always try to step over rugs because he thought they were holes in the ground.

[MrCowabungaa]

Thanks a lot Nick for mentioning neurodivergence! We're often forgotten in discussions about accessibility. Here's two other tips related to neurodivergence; acoustics, and colour and light.

A very echo-y room can really become overstimulating for people on the autism spectrum. So when decorating a room it can really help to pay attention to where you can put certain things to reduce echo. You can do already do a lot without immediately having to place acoustic panels. Strategically placing plants can help, putting up cloth wall decorations, rugs, avoiding leather couches and chairs, open bookcases, a table cloth or thick curtains. Those are some examples that can all help.

Colour is of course even more personal, but some people on the autism spectrum can feel visually overwhelmed by bright and brightly coloured spaces. It can help to think about using less saturated colours. And for days when you feel exhausted and easily overstimulated it can help to have ways to darken the space without it becoming unusable, like having your curtains be in multiple parts so you can only close a few if need be or have lights that are less bright and have a warmer colour temperature.

[jimhatch]

Great tips. One more that we decided on when we designed our new house - "25 year no-maintenance". We're in our early 60s and will be aging in place in what we hope is our last home. We built it assuming we'd be in wheelchairs or using walkers and that we'd not be able to do much of the maintenance ourselves. While that's not true today, we're only a slip or fall away from being less-abled. So we chose materials and designed so that we'd not need to do anything to it for 25 years. Our floors are a premium LVP that is waterproof, has a 25 yr commercial use warranty and we put it everywhere - no thresholds between the rooms. That means we're not going to have to have hardwood floors refinished in 10 years. Same for the siding - we used vinyl, really nice vinyl but still not wood or Hardieboard which the builder wanted. But we're not going to be repainting every 8-10 years. While we could hire it out, the house is built on a slope so in the back it's 45 feet from the ground to the roofline. That means a lot of extra money to hire a painter. A friend told me it's a 3X paint job - 3 times what the same job would cost if it were a 2-story house on a flat lot. Doors are all 36" wide pocket doors so we're not trying to swing open or close a door while leaning on a walker or sitting in a wheelchair. There's a reserved space on the main floor that can be used for an elevator if we can't navigate the stairs to the guest rooms and we want to be able to do that.

BTW, for the smart house, try to make it automatic not just smart. Automatic means the lights turn on when you enter the room and off when you leave (and don't turn off if you're just sitting quietly) but also will allow the wall switches to still work and yes, you can have voice commands but those are generally not as useful as you might think. Did you call it "dining room ceiling lights" you want turned on or "dining room lights" or "overhead lights in the dining room"? Much better if a sensor sees you coming into the room and turns them on before you get through the doorway. Even if you remember what you called things, so Alexa or Google can turn them on, will your guests know? Everything in a smart house should be triggered by your life activity with the switches and other methods of activation available for friends or family who aren't living there. In fact, if it's done correctly, visitors will leave having never had to flip a switch or lowered a shade themselves.

[tamaramartin]

We're actually in both categories -- hubs and i are getting older, and our teenage granddaughter is going blind. We'll be moving into a different house in the next few years, and both aging-in-place and her disability will be priorities in how and what we renovate. We're going to put in a bathroom downstairs next to her room so she won't have to deal with the stairs as much, and we'll light the stairs as well; making the stairs safer for her is actually our top priority. And just an fyi: GE has a line of appliances for the visually impaired. Thanks for a great and really important video, Nick. Well done.

[thekirksiffs]

I am 67 and my husband is 71. We have lived in our home for 34 years now. At the time we built it, the step-down living rooms and family rooms were very on trend. We are about to start a big reno of our first floor to bring those lowered rooms up to all one consistent level. We are also opening up a narrow hallway. This is being done with the intention of aging in place. Our first floor has a bath with a shower and a den that could be a bedroom if needed. For now, we still use both floors (bedrooms upstairs), but if we really had to, we could live on the first floor only with all the essentials needed and still have 1200sq ft of space. We have no mortgage left, love our neighborhood, and live in a very expensive part of the country. Selling and moving just seems not sensible when we can have our home changed for long term aging. We are also actively downsizing in place: releasing possessions that we no longer need or want for an overall simpler lifestyle, and to save our kids from having to deal with our "baggage" when we are gone.

[anxylum]

Not slipping and cracking my head in the shower IS aesthetically pleasing to me. 😍