Barrier Free

So today I was in the middle of vacuuming my floors and had to do something with the baby so I just dropped the vacuum on the floor... thinking I would get to it later.. no big deal, right?  Anyway, so I made lunch for the kids, put everything on the table, and called everyone to eat.

Simple, right?

Wrong.

"Um.. mom, I can't get to the table"

I look down and my daughter (who is knee walking) is looking up at me after trying to figure out how to go around the vacuum cleaner on the floor.  I apologized profusely and quickly moved the vacuum to a more unobtrusive location.

Things like this happen sometimes but I'm usually very good about keeping things off the floor - organizing shoes so they aren't in the hallways - you know - normal household cleaning stuff.  The only difference in my house, though, is that if I don't clean up or tidy messes all day long, my daughter suffers and isn't able to access parts of her own home.

That reminds me of why we bought the house we did.. we just moved a year ago but it was a while looking before we actually found something appropriate.  We looked at tons of beautiful houses in beautiful neighbourhoods - some of which we would've otherwise purchased - except that we were looking for a barrier free property that allowed easy access throughout the home (in our case wheelchair access).

Here is what wikipedia tells us about barrier-free http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrier-free

Think about every house you've lived in and tell me if you think it's barrier free.. or even CLOSE to being barrier free.  How wide were the doorways? 30 inches?  Let's see (calculating standard width of a wheelchair = 25-27 inches plus oh let's say 3 inches per hand if you're holding ONTO the wheels to move it = 6 inches) so if 30 inches is a standard door width and a person in a wheelchair needs 31-33 inches - looks like they're not getting through there doesn't it?  Also - look down at the thresholds of your doorways or where different flooring types meet.  Is there a big bump/step up/threshold piece?  Hmm.. another FAIL.  Take note of the bottom of rounded stairs, do they jut out into the hallway?  Is the hallway wide enough?  Do you have major sets of stairs to even enter the home?  Is there a main floor washroom?  Bedroom?  Things I never even would've considered as factors in buying a home before are now front and center.

Anyway - that's it for me today - peace love.