When people become wheelchair bound for whatever reason, illness or accident it suddenly becomes apparent how wheelchair unfriendly the home is.  Many people struggle with cranes and crutches, walkers and rollators for as long as they can, before resorting to a wheelchair, because of the wheelchair unfriendliness of their homes. 

People may say ‘why not sell up and move to a wheelchair friendly home?’, but often wheelchair customized homes are far and few between and out of many people’s housing budget. 

There are loans available to make modifications to make a house more accessible, but they rarely cover everything if corridors and doors need widening, a wheelchair stair lift is needed, a bathroom with reinforced walls suitable for installing grab bars on, needs to be put on the ground floor, and kitchen cupboards lowering – to name a few tasks. 

If you are lucky as regards to the housing front and everything is wide enough, you have a bathroom you can access easily, and then it could be that you just need a few accessories to make your home wheelchair friendly. 

It could be that all you need are some ramps to make getting up and down a step (Rubber Threshold ramp), or over a bump in a doorway (Threshold Wheelchair Ramp).  There are also some good ramps available for putting over steps to the entrance of your home like the Telescoping Platform Ramp.  

Other things that you could consider for making the house more wheelchair friendly are bed rails, assistive furniture like hip chairs and lift recliners, and accessories for bath safety.