Following a tragic automobile accident my father was confined to a wheelchair.
He spent nearly six months in the hospital and then a 3-month stay at a rehabilitation center before he was ready to come home.
All the while during his recovery we sat down and realized that we needed to make some major changes at our home. Even though my brothers and I are all grown, three of us still live at home with our parents and at least we were able to do much of the work ourselves. We knew that we would need to add a handicapped entrance to the house as well as widen many of the door frames so that Dad could get around easily. This meant that we would be opening up several of the wall sections and trying to make the house have a more open floor plan. The biggest issue that we faced was moving the ductwork that ran through the walls and relocating several of the air vents for the HVAC system. Our HVAC dealer came in and actually recommended that we look into radiant flooring instead of forced air to heat the house because this would eliminate the ductwork and air vents all together. This seems like a viable solution so we made arrangements to have that installed and then converted to using mini split units for air conditioning that could hang on the walls. Both of these were wonderful ideas and really freed up the space that we needed to ensure there would be no obstructions in Dad’s way once he was settled back home. Making the house more accessible was what was important and we are very pleased with these changes.