Last year we had the opportunity to work with an excellent family to increase the mobility and independence of one of their family members.
This project was a little different than most of the projects we do. J.R. Moorhead went to visit a new project like he always does. This time the potential clients had a severely disabled son with round the clock nurses taking care of him. His name is Keone. Keone is around 12 and needs help to do everything. He is bed ridden.
They had a regular bathroom which made it nearly impossible for their regular nurses to clean him comfortably. J.R. decided that we are going to help this kid! We made the numbers work so Keone could get a Moorhead bathroom. If anyone deserved a nice bathroom, it was this boy!
We moved some walls around to enlarge the bathroom. For this project, we took a standard bathtub and turned it into a hospital quality shower. We also added a doorway from the boy’s bedroom so the bathroom could be entered directly from his bedroom.
As you can see by the window size, we had to make some comprises in order to do what we wanted to do. This house was built of unpainted decorative brick. It would have been a lot of money to cut the walls, to make window size bigger, then put back new brick to make the window opening look nice. This family was on a budget and we decided to leave the window opening how it is on the exterior and make the window smaller on the interior.
As you can see, the slide bar with removable wand is perfect for nurses to use to wash Keone. The grab bars are there for support and we made this shower curbless so you can roll a wheelchair right in without any restrictions. We jackhammered a ton of concrete out to rerun the sewer line to accommodate the new layout.
We enlarged the main entrance to the bathroom to make it large enough for wheelchair access. The clients and I decided that the best way to maximize the space in the home was to go with a barn door for the entrance. That way we didn't have to worry about the door opening up and being in the way. The clients also liked the look of going with the large barn door.