products you’ll love, whether you’re disabled or not
Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links, meaning at no additional cost to you, I may earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.
My husband always says we live a customizable life. Due to my disability, an over-the-counter/out-of the box item is almost never an option. You’ll understand more as I explain a few products I absolutely love as a person with a disability, but that I think anyone who isn’t disabled will love too.
1. Barn door
Barn door closed
Barn door open
Ok, they may be getting over used a bit on many of those home renovation channels, but they still look super unique in homes. I get compliments on mine all the time.
Why you’ll love it if you’re not disabled: It looks beautiful and can be a unique feature in your home. If you have a small room, but ample wall space for the barn door to open, a barn door will give you back that floor space that a traditional door usually takes up.
Why you’ll love it if you're disabled: For me, it solved a major issue, the bathroom door was just too narrow for me to get through. Swing away hinges can sometimes be installed to add extra opening width, but not in the case of my door frame. The solution was to add a barn door to give me the extra width, but removing the hinge depth and door itself which even when wide open was never completely out of my way.
2. Raised Planter
I love my VegTrug planters. I’m talking love. I just bought a second one and hope to have even more in the future.
VegTrug, the duo
Vegtrug
Why you’ll love it if you’re not disabled: If like me, you’re always in your flower and veggie beds, you get sick of leaning and bending over to weed, plant, etc. Raised beds eliminate this bending. I hear so many gardeners complain about “critters” and how to fence off the prized plants. Depending on the height of your bed, this is completely eliminated. My VegTrug is high enough, I have never had an issue with nibblers in my garden. The ants, bees and other pollinators find it fine though!
Why you’ll love it if you’re disabled: Again, leaning over is tough if you’re able-bodied. If you’re disabled it can be difficult, painful, or downright impossible. A raised bed can give you the freedom to garden again, whether flowers or vegs. The VegTrug actually touts being wheelchair friendly and it’s true. The angle of the bed allows me to get my legs underneath and reach the middle of the bed without issue. Wonderful!
Mulch mats
These mats are laid out between my vegetable beds.
Why you’ll love it if you’re not disabled:They are advertised on the Gardener's Supply website as extra padding for your knees, as well as a better alternative to mulch or grass between your beds, because who wants to move between their garden beds? Plus they look great!
Why you’ll love it if you’re disabled: I can’t wheel over grass well, and mulch at all. The mats between the beds give a more solid surface to wheel on so I can more easily reach the beds. Win-win.
4. Garage Door Opener with Battery Backup
I have a Chamberlain garage door opener with battery backup.
Why you’ll love it if you’re not disabled: It opens your garage door so you don’t have to get out of your car to bring it into the garage in rain, snow, or excessive cold or heat. The additional features of battery backup in case you lose power is a great bonus. There is also an app from your phone to open or close the door. I love this feature because if you’ve ever wondered from work “did I close the garage door?”, you can check. Or in my case, when I was home alone with the baby in a panic “did I close the garage door?” you can check without opening your garage access door to check, as in some bad horror movie. You can also add additional codes to allow certain folks access for an unlimited or finite time period. I find this great for the occasional visit from a contractor when I’m not able to be home, or the housekeeper who has her own code. Another more recent bonus with the Chamberlain garage doors is the partnership with Amazon Key. You can provide access to the delivery folks to your garage to have your packages safely delivered if you’re worried about theft or don’t have a porch to protect from the rain or snow.
Why you’ll love it if you’re disabled. I love the battery backup feature because I can alway be sure I can enter or exit my garage in an emergency, even if the power is out. In the New England suburbs, this is important because we lose power enough that I wanted to know I could get in the garage during inclement weather (think Nor’easter) with the baby safely. I also wanted to have access to the car to leave the house in the snow via the car if the other doors were snowed in - yes this happens.All the other features are great too!
5. Pergo flooring
We went through so many iterations picking out this floor. We’re in a 1960s ranch on a very cracked and uneven 1960s slab. We looked at all sizes of tiles and considered hardwood, but for many reasons, we chose Pergo TimberCraft + WetProtect Herschel Hickory Waterproof Embossed Wood Plank Laminate Flooring.
New floors in dining room
Why you’ll love it if you’re not disabled: If, like us, you have any water infiltration concerns (think seepage from an old slab), waterproof flooring is the way to go. If you have pets or a kid(s), waterproof flooring is great. My son drags in so much snow, mud, wet, kiddie pool water and I don’t care. His friends run from the pool into the house and I don’t care. Yay, waterproof floor!
Although hardwoods are always lovely, on a concrete slab, it is not the ideal. In addition, they are cost prohibitive especially with the addition of underlayment and subfloor. Pergo is an affordable option and if you’re so inclined (we weren’t), you can DIY it pretty easily. It has a lifetime warranty, no maintenance, and looks and sounds like real wood.
Why you’ll love it if you’re disabled: All the reasons above, and again, it’s waterproof. We talked about kids and pets, but wheelchairs drag in so much muck and wet. Even if I bang my chair off in the garage and towel it down, I’m inevitably leaving wet tire marks and puddles in the house. The other reason I love, love, love this flooring (did I mention I love it), is that wheeling around the house is smooth now. No more grout seems everywhere, which let me tell you, once they’re gone, you notice and it’s bliss. Finally, the floor underlayment, a required step by Pergo for the warranty, a wonderful extra layer of warmth under the 12mm flooring. That means even on a slab in the middle of winter, they are warm. My feet were always painful and cold in the winter no matter what I did when we had the old parquet and tile floors. No longer. You can see more before and after photos on the elevateher.world Instagram.
6. Patio Heater
Family NOT Freezing in October 2020 under the patio heater
The patio was a game changer during the pandemic. In New England, it allowed us to extend our outdoor season into November. This literally saved my life since being snowed in when you use a wheelchair sucks. During the fall of 2020, these were impossible to get since most of the restaurants were snapping them up for outdoor seating, but they seem more readily available again.
Why you’ll love it if you’re not disabled: You can sit outside in the northeast into November and even some random evening into December, although you’ll want to keep your heater secured from Nor’easter winds and snow. When the neighborhood hosted “end of the driveway trick or treating”, it saved us because the temps were in the 30s that night. Unlike some fire pits, it can be moved from the back patio to the front driveway pretty easily and it’s a lot warmer than a fire pit, where you have to huddle over it to get any benefit.
Why you’ll love it if you’re disabled: Like I said, I hate being stuck inside in the winter, but I have difficulty maintaining a consistent body temperature. The heater kept me warm and extended that season which literally saved my life over the winter of 2021.
Patio
Backyard ramp
I admit this was one of the more expensive projects we’ve done and it was one of the first. As a wheelchair user I couldn’t get in or out of the house via any of the doors and quite frankly, the front walkway was hideous. You can read more about my experience at “walkway that’s a ramp, if you’re so inclined”. Another big shout out to John Giusto of Giusto Landscaping for his amazing design and installation.
Why you’ll love it if you’re not disabled: Adding outdoor space adds value to your property, but if you actually plan on living at your home, it adds really wonderful entertaining space.
Why you’ll love it if you’re disabled: The patio, ramp and front walkway that is actually a ramp have made life a dream and they look amazing. Yes it is expensive, but if you’re putting in any kind of ramp, it’s super expensive. I highly recommend working with a landscape designer so you can have a beautiful entrance to your home and outdoor space you can actually use. The patio allows me to use the backyard, which was all grass and impossible to wheel. Plus it’s the perfect spot for outdoor BBQs. Win.win.win.
Our garage floor slab was falling apart. The option to jackhammer it out and re-pour it seemed excessive in light of all the other work we were doing on the house at the time. However, I hated when I wheeled over the crumbling concrete and ended up with bits stuck to my chair wheels and hands. Yuck! We used Garage Flooring LLC and couldn’t have been happier with their customer service, speed, competitive pricing, and overall quality.
Why you’ll love it if you’re not disabled: Totally able to DIY this one. So easy and super budget friendly. This is much cheaper than epoxy coating and a better option if your floor is less than perfect and epoxy isn’t an option. We did a color combination you can see in the picture which demarcates where the front of the car should stop. Neat, huh?
Why you’ll love it if you’re disabled: Some days being in the chair, I feel like I’m wet and dirty and have picked up every bit of grossness on my tires and hands. These really eliminated all of that for me. It’s easy to spray this down if it gets muddy too. Another bonus is that it’s so smooth when you wheel over it. Nothing to bump over. It’s lovely.
9. Single Handle Faucets
Bathroom faucet
Kitchen faucet
In some design choices, a double handled faucet is a great choice, but honestly, for real life, I would never want anything but a single handle. Both my kitchen faucet and bathroom faucet (a find and a steal unfortunately no longer available!).
Why you’ll love it if you’re not disabled: It’s sleek and comes in a variety of styles and colors to fit most decor. It’s much easier to clean because of just the single handle. In the kitchen, it’s easier to manage one handle when you have dirty hands from cooking and baking.
Why you’ll love it if you’re disabled: If you have hand weakness or are coming at a sink from an angle in a wheelchair, single lever faucets are just better. Period. I love this one also because it swivels so I can move it where I need it, which in a small bathroom is a wheelchair is key.
10. Wireless Switches
We live in a 1960s ranch, so we don’t have overhead lighting in all the rooms. That means we have floor lamps to light the living room. However, the way our furniture is set up, I can’t reach all the light switches easily. Nor do I want to traipse around the room in a wheelchair, at the time with a fussy toddler, turning on the lights.
Why you’ll love it if you’re not disabled: My mother literally bought these right after she saw them in our house. The convenience factor is huge. You can set it up for lamps, televisions, or any other hard to reach device.
Why you’ll love it if you’re disabled: Even in the description at the link above, it reads “an ideal ally to those with limited mobility” and it’s true. Being able to easily reach lights in the living room, my son’s room and all over the house is so freeing.
After renovation (missing toe kicks) with Pergo floors
Vent hood remote
When doing the kitchen renovation, I went through several design iterations. Initially I hoped that I would have a sleek hood you see on the home renovation shows, but a badly placed sewer pipe dashed those hopes. So we installed a cabinet and I needed to find an under-cabinet hood I didn’t hate and went with my more modern, industrial aesthetic. I found this great GE Hood, but it wasn't just the hood. It would be impossible to reach the light and vent switches. I’d also accidentally burned something enough times that I wanted to be able to turn this on by myself. This hood has a remote to turn the lights and vent function. No it’s not cheap, but as vent hoods go, the hood is a good price, so think of it as a package.
Why you’ll love it if you’re not disabled: If you’re short of stature, you need the remote. I really like this hood too. It was a pretty easy DIY and can be converted for a top or back vent setup (not all of them are). This is also very light in comparison to others I shopped, again making it easier for DIYers Some of the reviewers complained about noise other than the vent noise, but if installed correctly, meaning with enough support, there is no additional noise.
Why you’ll love it if you’re disabled: The remote is clutch. Being able to turn it on and off at my leisure, instead of asking my husband or my kid to stand on my lap and “push the buttons for mom, will ya?” is a nice little bit of independence I appreciate and you will as well.
12. Apron Front Sink
Apron front sink lip
I didn’t convert my entire kitchen to accessibility partially because of the aesthetic and partially because I’m not the only one living here. The apron front sink fills both functions - beautiful aesthetic and more accessibility for me.
Why you’ll love it if you’re not disabled: What’s not to love. It’s sleek, modern. It goes with a lot of different styles - farmhouse, industrial, modern. The basin is deep and wide enough for your biggest dinners and longest pans. If you’re like us and rough on your stuff and/or have kids, you don’t have to worry about cracking it like you would a ceramic apron front.
Why you’ll love it if you’re disabled: The apron front sits lower than a traditional sink. It actually sits under the counters. I find just those few inches make a huge difference in my comfort level getting into the sink.
