Accessibility

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) set standards for making buildings more accesible in the commercial sector. These standards are not required for residential construction, but they just seem like a good idea. It opens up the house to all users and gives it a much longer useful life. The main floor of the house and the guesthouse incorporate the following ADA guidelines:

• No steps: From the driveway, through the front door, to all the interior rooms, and out the back deck the floor surfaces are all within quarter an inch of height of each other. This makes these areas accessbile for wheelchair users and also makes the transitions much safer for everyone else.
• Wide doors and hallways: All the main floor doors are at least 34" wide to ensure wheelchair users can pass through unobstructed.
• Accessible handles: The doors, faucets, and cabinet pulls use long levers or D-handles, rather than knobs, since levers are so much easier to grasp. The interior door levers Pembroke (models 720PML and 730PML) are ADA compliant.
• Casement windows and French double doors: Generally it is easier to turn a crank on a casement than it is to lift the sash of a double hung window or slide a pane of a slider window. Similarly, it is harder to slide a sliding glass door than to push open a French door.
• Curbless showers: The main floor master bathroom and the guesthouse shower have curbless showers so people with impaired mobility can enter the shower with a mimimum of effort.
• Accessible bathroom: The bathroom by the offices contains an ADA compliant sink, faucet, toilet, and tub while providing a five foot turning circle. During framing blocking was installed in the walls of this and the other bathrooms for attaching grab bars in the future (see the rough inspections photos).
• Kitchen counter: One counter area in the kitchen is lower down and provides knee space underneath to provide a work area for a seated person.
• Electrical: On the main floor and in the guesthouse the electrical switches are mounted lower and the electrical outlets are mounted higher than the norm to make both more accessibile to disabled users.