Category: home design
The Re-Education of Michael Graves
John Hockenberry interviews Michael Graves:
When I visit Graves again one steamy morning last summer, he is confined to his bed due to a prolonged bedsore, under strict medical orders to heal it by staying down and out of his wheelchair, so he insists that we speak in his room. A number of chairs are set [...]
(Full Post)Universal Design versus Visitability
Ruth (Wheelie Catholic) has got some discussion going about Universal Design and Visitability.
Universal Design is based on the idea that products and environments should be designed in a way to make them usable by as many people as possible without adaption. It’s a very big (and important) idea. Visitability, on the other hand, is a [...]
Accessible Landscape Design
I’m currently obsessing about creating an accessible landscape design for our property. Found so far:
Fun and Leisure: Home Enabling Garden, from NCPAD
ACCESSIBLE GARDENING: Bring Mother Earth Within Reach, from MDA
I’m trying to find resources which avoid tokenism: rather than “here’s how to build a table-top garden”, or “horticulture as therapy”, I want access to the [...]
Wheelchair Friendly Homes Nearing Completion
Wheelchair Friendly Homes Nearing Completion, from the Chatanoogan.
Interesting what qualifies as “wheelchair accessible”. Notice that this home has what looks like 5-6 steps to the front entrance. Apparently the accessible entrance is hidden in the garage. This hiding of accessibility features stands in contrast to the renovation of Lake Park Lutheran Church in Milwaukee, where [...]
(Full Post)!Spindles
I hate those colonial-looking turned spindles. Think you can cram any more dirt-trapping nooks and crannies into something? I have these things all over my house. Plus the kitchen cabinets match, with all kinds of little decorative grooves and edges. Argh.
(Full Post)New Urbanism
Via Rolling Rains: Eleanor Smith of Concrete Change has some excellent observations on the shortcomings of New Urbanism in an article in the Ragged Edge.
Prospect here in Longmont is an example of New Urbanism. While I applaud breaking out of the cookie cutter developer mold, and rethinking the relationship of the house with its environs, [...]
The Will to Decorate
I think I’ve lost it.
I’ve given in on wall colors and doors. Light fixtures can’t be far behind. A couple of years ago I bought the end of a bolt of this incredible fabric that I just adore at Hobby Lobby for, like $1/yard. It’s a gauzy off-white with various brown yarns woven through it. [...]
Color III
And the winner is …
white.
Excuse me while I go cry in my beer and re-visualize.
Color II
Aaahhh!!! Heaven on Earth is pastel baby blue. My living room looks like a baby boy nursery. I don’t know if I can cope.
Maybe once we add the many, many 7 foot bookcases, the large round cherry coffee table, the piano, the two black barrel chairs, the long red sofa and the giant African [...]
Color
The first coat of color is up in the living room, and my color-shy Beloved has proclaimed it too dark. Since he’s put up with screaming yellow and orange for several years, I figured the least I could do was magnanimously agree to replace New Born’s Eyes (Benjamin Moore 1663) with Heaven on Earth (Benjamin [...]
(Full Post)And the remodeling goes on, and on
I’m messing around with colors a lot lately. I’m having a lot of fun with a book called Choosing Colors by Kevin McCloud: 64 sets of palettes, with example photos, and lists of actual paint colors, mostly Benjamin Moore.
I went through a bohemian decorating phase involving very bright colors on the walls, but they make [...]
Headlines
International Paralympic Committee: Nominees for Laureus 2005 Announced
Proposal urges wheelchair-friendly home design
And here is what makes this a no-brainer: Experts in architecture and design estimate the total average cost per dwelling is $98 (on a concrete slab) and $573 (for a dwelling with a basement or crawl space).
Remodeling
Our remodeling has begun. I came home last Monday evening to find that all the furniture had been moved out of the living room, and carpet removal was underway. Now the steps have been dismantled, the gas fireplace removed, and the drywall cut out to the level of the new floor.
Remodeling background: we have a [...]
Michael Graves
An article in this month’s Metropolitan Home made me aware that Michael Graves, of Target appliance fame, is now One of Us. The Met Home article about Graves’ adaption of his home for wheelchair accessibility is superficial, but this SFGate.com article is somewhat more informative.
“None of them was designed for people like me,” said Graves. [...]
(Full Post)One-Third
One third of the bulbs are planted. I think I’ll go die now.
(Full Post)674 Bulbs
Now that my former pool is a garden, it’s time to find something to put in it.
Today I bought:
100 iris reticulata harmony
100 galanthus elwesii
20 allium bulgaricum
20 allium purple sensation
60 scilla siberica
64 narcissus
60 ixiolirion tataricum
100 crocus vernus
60 tulip pulchella eastern star
40 tulip tarda dasystemon
50 eranthus hyemalis
Tomorrow we’ll plant them.
(Full Post)Earthmoving
Thanks to the excellent services of Paul Gutierrez of Guterriez Trucking & Landscaping, we now almost don’t have a swimming pool anymore.
I should back up and give credit to the family, especially my husband and Eldest Son, who in several brutal days of jackhammering busted up the walls and bottom of the pool, and the [...]
Popcorn ceilings
My neighbor just finished scraping all the popcorn finish off her ceilings. I’m jealous. I very much hate my popcorn ceilings.
(Full Post)Accessible bathroom photos
I’ve had a couple of requests to post some pictures of our home modifications, and I’ve finally gotten around to starting.
(Full Post)Home Office Woes
The computers-in-the-family-room situation is driving me nuts.
We currently have one desktop computer, one printer and one laptop sharing a six foot table with the networking gear (hub, dsl modem, wireless access point) and miscellaneous other computer junk (palm pilot hot sync thingie, digital camera cables, etc). This mess is all cabled together in what seems [...]
Random Notes
I’m currently reading Phillip Simmons’ book Learning to Fall. I like what he has to say about acceptance. I certainly don’t practice it very well.
I saw a good sig on Wheelchairjunkie: a building that is not accessible is an economic crime scene.
From the New York Times: Architecture in the Age of Accessibility. This is a [...]
Home Modifications
I now have an officially Wheelchair Accessible House!
The ramp to the front door was first. We’ve gutted and remodeled the upstairs bathroom, and Monday, the stairlift (a Bruno Excel, for the detail-minded) was installed.
Some useful links:
Building an Accessible Home
Wheelchairnet’s Home Modification Page
Bob Vila’s Accessible Design
Low Cost Solutions for Making Your Home Accessible
Low Ceilings
The curse of low ceilings…I’ve been slightly obsessed with decorating the house lately. (”Slightly?” says my daughter. “You’re channelling Martha Stewart.” No, because Martha Stewart has tons of money, and I don’t. Plus she does those goofy rose ball arrangements.) Anyway, this house has low ceilings. Seven and a half foot ceilings, with popcorn finish [...]
(Full Post)The Ramp has been built!
This weekend my husband and a bunch of guys from work poured a concrete wheelchair ramp along the front walk and up to the front door, and the jury-rigged plywood Ramp of Death at the back door is no more! I’m doing the little happy dance, here!
(Full Post)Catching up
Whoops! I must have taken the summer off when I wasn’t looking! I’ll try to catch up.
On the house front, we moved in June. The new house is still not accessible, but we think it will be easier to modify than the old house. It’s much closer to grade (14″ vs more than twice that [...]
Cleaning house
What a week - we rented a 4 cubic yard dumpster from the city and filled it with junk. Many boxes of books went to the library, and many boxes of clothes went to Goodwill. The house is actually starting to look decent. We realised we couldn’t possibly get it clean enough ourselves, so Thursday [...]
(Full Post)On the market
Waiting to see about our offer. Now we have to put our house on the market - I’m going to take the rest of the week off work to help whip it into shape.
(Full Post)Making the offer
We think we’ve found a house we can modify - all the bedrooms are upstairs at present, but the former 2 car garage was converted to a family room, and that could probably be converted fairly easily to a ground floor master bedroom. We’re making an offer.
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