It’s a second-floor bathroom, but point taken! It’s a house that was built in the late 50’s and remodeled sometime in the 70’s, and no one took accessibility into account either time. If either of us ends up having to use a wheelchair full-time, we’re going to have to move.
Gotta be a bit careful about wheelchair accessibility. Those mods are very obvious and very off-putting to ordinary house buyers. If your family needs it, do it. But I’d not do it on the off chance it might come in handy for a couple weeks some day.
And doubly so if the house by overall design (split-level, multi-story, etc) is already a really poor fit for wheels. In that case, as @InternetLegend says, you’re gonna move when infirmity sets in, and any potential buyer won’t be infirm either for the same reason.
My upstairs bathroom had them installed when the bathroom was put in, because my mother came to visit and she needed them.
Some 25 years later, now I’m glad to have them. For some time after a medical procedure, I was very glad to have them.
(Tall toilets may be a person-by-person issue. I’m short, and I find tall toilets awkward to use to piss and next to impossible to use to shit.)
When my late first wife was raggedy, I bought some suction-cup grab bars. Each was about 12" long and had two ~4" suction cups. They adhered to the tile or glass walls in the shower fantastically. And we could move them around to the best location, height and angle for climbing in / out and for holding on while standing. Or for getting stood up out of the shower chair she eventually needed.
I got them at Walgreens or CVS for about $35 each. Great inventions. Can recommend. Being able to experiment with optimal placement was huge. By contrast my late aged MIL lived in an Independent living facility. They installed conventional grab bars in her bathroom, but they were placed where they did her almost no good.
I’m looking for exactly something like this. Would this be a similar product?
Or this?
The lower, smaller ones are just about exactly them.
I dunno. Wider doorways are convenient for lots of things, not just wheelchair access. Moving bulky furniture, for example.
I installed a ramp at my back door when my two elderly dogs could no longer navigate steps. That turned out to be safer for me, too, when coming out the door carrying a load of laundry.
BTW, I like the introduction of comments about safety products, etc., into this thread. I don’t consider that hijacking. I like to learn about that stuff, too.
This is exactly where Mrs. C and I find ourselves. With our cat, FWIW.
Man, I’d be leery of those, I think. Is it really going to hold when 225 pounds of human is exerting sheer pressure on those cups? I installed bars in our tub/shower in Portland and used lag bolts to secure them to studs. When we had the bathroom remodeled, Kohler installed bars that had 600 pound ratings.
Those actually work? That’s encouraging.
I also have a full downstairs bathroom. Too small for a wheelchair, but if I couldn’t get up and down a full flight of stairs but could walk at least a few steps it would work; but it wasn’t originally designed with grab bars. When my mother was staying downstairs here for a while we got one that clamped onto the tub, but it wasn’t ideal placement. The suction cup type didn’t look secure enough to me; but if they actually do work, that would be the thing to do about the downstairs tub. The toilet’s in close enough to other things I could grab on to, or one could be mounted into wood for that, though the spacing would be tight.
I’m not a real estate agent; but I think there are a lot of ordinary house buyers who like large bathrooms; and also a lot of ordinary house buyers who have family or friends who use wheelchairs, and/or are just aware that they themselves might be in that category at any time.
Pretty much any way that a house or apartment is set up will be attractive to some people and not others.
OK, I have so commented. But as long as I’m doing so: anything new on how the cats are taking it? and did you get your kitchen stocked for weekend meals? I think you said meals aren’t provided Saturdays and Sundays; though I might be remembering wrong. But probably you can order out; and maybe right now you just want to.
Hi, T_L!
Today was my third morning in a row testing negative for COVID-- yay!
I did not sleep well. Woke up at 2 am and slept fitfully after that. We must have had a storm because I was aware of Tikva leaving the bed during the night. She’s the one who always heads for the bunker if there’s any bad weather. I’m pretty insulated here, with an apartment above, below, and on one side, so I was only vaguely aware of lightning and thunder.
I did go to sing in the church choir today, which I had missed for several weeks. Everyone wants to know about The Home. I’m one of the younger people in the choir so they’re all headed this way sooner or later.
Then I had to go back to the house-- I sold a piece of equipment (to my choir director, in fact) and she sent two of her kids over to pick it up. I filled the water bowls in the back yard and front yard (for the critters), caught sight of the neighborhood stray cat (“Snowcone”) and I stood in the back yard and cried. The house is so sad and empty. And I made it so homey and wonderful…
EC is here on the sofa with me. Tikva (aka Bunker Kitty) is still in hiding. She usually doesn’t come out until close to sundown. She might actually be a bat. They’re eating okay and using the litter box and seem pretty adjusted.
I stopped at the gourmet supermarket and got some takeout-- salmon with rice, pimento cheese, watermelon, and a French pastry.
There is still much to be done. I can’t find some pretty important things. And I’m missing a ladder. Will text the moving coordinator tomorrow in the hope that they accidentally kept it. I still need to follow up on getting the bidet seat connected. The seat is in place, but I need a maintenance person to hook up the water. I need to call Spectrum tomorrow. @Dag_Otto, there IS a Spectrum Roku channel, which I added-- all I need is a login and password. Maybe they can give that to me over the phone. I don’t want any more stuff installed.
Hanging pictures…I’ve got lots of those that need unpacking…I have much more wall space here than in the house because the house had so many windows.
I was afraid I wouldn’t like the shower here and actually brought the shower head and hose (which I had bought from amazon– this thing is The Bomb!) from the house. But the shower is pretty good with good water pressure. I used to live in a second-floor apartment and the water pressure was terrible. One of the many things I loved about the house was it was the best water pressure I’ve had anywhere.
That’s the latest.
P.S. Tikva has left the bunker and she walks among us!
Here’s the living room-- NOT representative of what the rest of the place looks like!
Looks nice, I hope you’ll be happy there.
My Bil, 89 years old, is in assisted living and he does not care to participate in any social activities. Don’t be like that, and from what I’ve read, you won’t be that person.
Those suction grab bars are fine, but you need to ensure that the surface you
want to suction to is cleaned thoroughly of all limescale etc.
(but i’m sure y’all do that regularly !)
I’m still in “independent” living. When my mother was in assisted living, she was like your BIL. Of course, she was taken to the dining room three times a day for meals and occasionally she went to bingo or for a manicure. She didn’t have a TV and didn’t want one. She hadn’t had one even when she still lived in her apartment in San Diego. She would just sit. She scared me one time by saying, “If I told you the things I think about, you’d be shocked.” I never asked because I was pretty sure I would be shocked. She liked the macabre. I never wanted to peer inside her head. Brrr… 
In other news, I took two of my three amazon echoes out of plastic bags and set them up. I had 17 smart plugs at the house and (cleverly!) I labeled each one so I knew what device it went to. I don’t have all the lamps set up yet, but for the ones that are set up, the routines are still all in place. <Pats self on back> Another advantage of continuing to use my T-Mobile Gateway. Ever-buddy just remembers what they’re 'posed to do. I love my techie toys. 
The third echo is going in the office, a room I have not had the intestinal fortitude to tackle yet. That is a very good chair that I got from the Relax the Back store. It absolutely will not move on the carpeting! I had hardwood floors in my office before. I’m going to need one of those plastic thingies to go under it. I’d like to get it in person, not online. Office Max-- would that be a good place? Any advice?
Tikva trying to remember what it was like to spend a week under the house with the possums, raccoons, and skunks…
Dawww. It’s still cat tv though, watching things go past and deciding whether or not to murder them that day. 
I known you’re looking for less stuff, not more stuff, but if they get super zoomy, you can always consider a ZiggyDoo Cat Wheel.
Our cats like, but do not love them, but they’re good for Colorado winters where they have excess energy but are barred from the catio by sub-freezing temps (well, they go out in those, and enjoy walking in the snow, but only very briefly!).
ETA - Here, hopefully this will work, adding a short clip of our Coco cat in ours.
Wow! I WANT ONE! For me!
It looks so cozy. Nice snuggle spots for you and the cats.
Cool. Hopefully it will provide the local channels. One less box is always good.
My BiL goes down for breakfast and socializes with other folks then. But he doesn’t participate in the ice cream socials, nor any of the other activities. I generally take him out for shopping and lunch on Thursdays weather permitting. He likes Firehouse Sub sandwiches pretty well, so that’s often where we go. My wife and I read a lot, so he gets most of our books as we finish them. After he’s done I either keep them, if I liked it enough for another read, or donate to our local thrift store.