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“Accessibility”, as it pertains to the design of buildings, is a term that most of us are somewhat familiar with. The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (the “ADA”) mandates that most buildings used by the public be designed for ease of use by persons with many kinds of disabilities. We’ve all seen accessible parking spaces, ramps, and washrooms in retails stores, airports, and office buildings.

Homes, too, should incorporate design features and products that are easier to use by people of all ages and abilities. It’s a concept called “universal design”. For most people however, the image of an accessible home is one of fluorescent lights, wheelchair ramps, and white porcelain plumbing fixtures – more like a clinic than a home.

But an accessible home needn’t be like that at all. In fact, many design features and fixtures that work well for accessibility are also well suited for just about anyone. Accessible design is often just plain good design – a well-integrated accessible home design can and should extend a home’s usability through more than just one phase of family life.

Start In The Kitchen

Making a house more accessible isn’t particularly difficult or expensive. You might even have some universal design principals at work in your kitchen now.

“Side-by-side” refrigerators are more usable by a person in a wheelchair – unlike a unit with the freezer mounted on top. Inside the refrigerator, sliding shelves eliminate the need to reach all the way to the back to retrieve what you want.

A very common disabling condition associated with aging is reduced physical strength, which can make cooking in a large pot difficult if it has to be lifted into and out of the sink to fill with water. Instead of a standard kitchen faucet, install a “goose-neck” spout that allows the pot to be filled without lifting it into the sink. And place the cooktop nearby so that the pot can be easily slid across the countertop to the burner – no lifting required.

The latest in dishwasher design is the “drawer” type like those from Fisher & Paykel and KitchenAid. Drawer dishwashers don’t require as much bending over to load and unload and because there’s no door in the way, they’re more easily used from a sitting position.

Staying Home

As the American population ages and as housing prices escalate, many homeowners are trying to stay in their homes longer. Too often however, family homes are primarily designed for young families and become rapidly obsolete when they can no longer provide the convenience and safety that older citizens need. It’s an unfortunate result of a “disposable home” mentality – but that’s a topic for a future article!

A few simple design changes can make almost any home better able to support changing lifestyles, as ease of use and safety become important issues. One of the easiest is the installation of blocking for grab bars at appropriate places in the bath when the house is built. These simple and inexpensive structural supports are used for the future installation of grab bars, which provide increased safety in showers, tubs, and at toilets.

Another easy change is using “lever-type” door hardware – popular because of its looks and ease of use but also a requirement for persons with reduced strength or restricted mobility. Widening the doors a few inches can also extend the useable life of the house. Standard thirty-inch doors aren’t wide enough for wheelchairs and can be difficult for anyone with trouble walking. A thirty-six inch wide door solves both problems and makes moving furniture a lot easier, too.

Ups and Downs

Stairs are the biggest obstacle to making any home accessible. Typically, a fully accessible home must be all on one level – no stairs, step-downs, or even door thresholds. But a one-level home is more costly to build than a two-story and may require a larger property.

A better solution is a residential elevator. Sound expensive? Compared to the cost of a one-level home on a larger lot, an elevator is a very reasonable expense. It only adds about sixty square feet to the floor plan, and enables easy access to the first floor, the second floor, and the basement. Even better, only the elevator shaft need be installed now – the actual elevator equipment doesn’t have to be in place until it’s needed, maybe many years down the road.

Easier Than You Might Think

In most cases, accessible or universal design isn’t much more than good design sense and a desire to make houses usable by everyone – and isn’t that a worthy goal for any house, regardless of the current occupants? Our houses are sometimes a little too disposable – we can easily make them less so by making them more functional for a wide range of homeowners with and without disabilities. We’ll all benefit from design that helps people stay in their homes longer.

Drawing custom house plans is an expansive industry, but finding a quality designer with construction experience can be more difficult.  Although many individuals claim to be qualified custom home designers, you can determine these qualifications by examining their finished product and verifying satisfaction with their former clients.  Quality designs, highly detailed house plans and customer satisfaction are all attributes of an experienced custom home designer.

Integrating many different concepts and functions is necessary to draw a good set of custom house plans.  Many designers can come up with interesting ideas, but they are unable to convey these ideas with detailed construction drawings to the home builders.  They can draw a nice conceptual picture, but these individuals have little or no construction knowledge to translate these ideas into a detailed set of house plans in which the builder can understand.  It is necessary to not only have a keen eye for design, but also a strong understanding of what can be built and how it can be built affordably.

Having been in the home design and construction industry for 20 years, Design Alternatives has seen a large number of house plans which appeared complete at first glance.  Although further examination sometimes revealed that these so called custom house plans lacked large amounts of pertinent information.  If a set of construction drawings is not easy to read or thoroughly detailed, the builder is left to make his own interpretation which inevitably leads to guesswork.  This ultimately means increased building costs since he will have to inflate his bid to make sure he covers any unknown construction costs.

When evaluating the quality level of house plans, certain items to check are the amount of pertinent dimensions, notes and details.  Highly detailed sets of custom house plans will always include the necessary information to build the house in a productive and affordable way.  You will find many home plans available today are incomplete while only showing the design concept rather than the detail.  Any time your builder is left to guess at how something will be built, it will obviously add cost to your home construction project.  Not all designers go the extra mile to create a quality and useful finished set of house plans, so make sure the custom home designer you select has design as well as construction knowledge.

Design Alternatives Custom Home Design takes pride in offering its clients quality custom house plans which comes from the vast experience received during its 20 years in the custom home design and construction industry.  This experience along with the long list of satisfied clients has proven to be the driving force of success for Design Alternatives.

Here are some tips that you should consider before building a new Home:

Make certain that you know how the software works. Have a few minutes to read the attached instructions and try to practice utilizing the software until you turn out to be comfortable with all the tools and any other options, which are offered in the program. Get one or two books about house design, to ensure that you’re designing all things so that it’ll work and flow correctly in the new house. Do not make your hall ways too big and the bedrooms very small. Do not design a house that has engineering problems. Your house may look wonderful when seen on the computer, but encompass engineering troubles. If you have a good design, you need to ensure that all the plumbing, electrical, air-conditioning and heating systems will function and work well with your home design. It would not be a bad plan to know how homes are constructed, prior to designing one. I cannot tell you how many architects I already have worked with, who do not know how homes are in fact built.

When you have that house design software, try designing different buildings, before calling an engineer or architect. A good architect or engineer and even a good general contractor could look at a home design and mention problems with it.

Here is a list of online home designer services and free home designer software that could improve your ability to make beautiful home designs that reproduce the chains of your budget while adding up your personal touches into each design.

Besides that, these tools make it fun to plan and in fact foresee changes to your house’s design.

Online home design software that draw design for home plan/floor plan online:

Floor Planner – Website that offers Floor Plan Design Services Gliffy – Website that offers Floor Plan Drawing Services

Free Home Design software that will assist you design your own ideal house:

Envisioneer Express – Offers Free Software for Residential House Designing SmartDraw Floor Plan – Offers Free Software for Floor Plan Design Sweet Home 3D – Offers Software for Open Source Free Home Designing