My clients, let’s call them Helena and Boris, asked me to design a wheelchair user’s bathroom for their new home. They were life-loving fun people with a very active lifestyle. They traveled, they threw parties, and they liked to laugh. Helena’s style was modern and glamorous. She liked a combination of rustic natural materials with sleek glossy surfaces and crystals. She showed me the two natural stone tiles that she got at a bargain price. “Can we be creative with this?” And so we talked about the style and design avoiding the subject of her husband’s physical challenges as much as possible. At the same time, the bathroom had to be wheelchair accessible for him but without looking different from any other stylish bathroom.
Designing a wheelchair bathroom
I admired Helena’s ability to have fun with the design project while focusing on functionality and mobility issues.
After I created the floor plan and the basic layout with the accessibility checklist in mind, the fun part began. I worked with non-slip stone tiles of two sizes 1″ by 1″ and 4″ by 4″ for all the surfaces including walls, ceiling, and floors. I drafted four ACad designs manipulating tiles and creating a variety of patterns. Helena chose one of the layouts since I created many of them. After four different patterns for each surface, Helena chose the most interesting ones. They included additional accents: the glass tile for the floor and the small metal inserts for the walls. After that, we decided to visually lower the ceilings by installing the mirrors on the top and creating the niches around the shower top. The contractors installed the tile in traditional, classic patterns, but the use of glass made it all appear modern.
Because the bathroom was long and very high we decided to install the mirrors on the upper portion of the room so that the ceilings looked a little lower. The niches were reflecting in the mirrors. Obviously, I designed the bathroom vanities for the wheelchair access. The bathroom is spacious, comfortable with plenty of room for both, the wheelchair user and his wife.
As a result, Helena was thrilled. This was the bathroom she was dreaming about!
Read more about bathroom design and tiles: Top Trends for Bathroom Tiles: Bathroom Tiles Ideas
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I really love these collection of ideas and suggestions. Designing Bathrooms for Safety, Function, Ease of Use AND Beauty – these designs are not just for aesthetic purposes but also for its value and functionality.
I have experience decorating my interiors only for purpose of beauty without any other considerations. But now I realized there should be other considerations besides its look. If you can target both functionality and its great look, then you are on the right track. Keep it up Marina, I really love your blogs!!!!!
This is a well-written article Marina! It is brief and concise, easy to understand but interesting and helpful at the same time. The title of the article is very catchy and it caught my attention right away. I agree with you that you should never lack style even if your bathroom or any space for that matter, needs special mobility. I believe that if there’s someone in your home who has special mobility needs, you need to make sure that you keep the home comfortable and functional for him, that way that person can manage moving about on his wheelchair on his own, but it doesn’t mean you need to lack style. You can still apply your personal style as long as it doesn’t compromise the needs of that person. I actually have a friend who suffered from stroke and who has been living in wheelchair for years. He and his wife both want to make sure that they keep their home functional, comfortable and stylish at the same time, so they installed wall designs and carpeting with baroque style. This was the style that they both wanted to go four and it was well-executed in their home. I’ll make sure I send them the link to your blog so they can have ideas to recreate the look of their home!
That was a fun project for me. The client still enjoys it.
i totally agree
Thank you for your comment. I am glad to be helpful if I may.
I like to spend my free time by reading various web sites and today i came across your site and I think that it is one of the best free resources available! Well done! Keep on this quality!
thank you