Custom home renovations have always provided unique value to homeowners. You can make the home more suited to your personal needs and aesthetic tastes while also increasing its value on the local home market; one beautiful upgrade at a time. Those with handicaps as well as accessibility concerns have a great deal to gain from renovations. No longer do accessibility upgrades need to be exclusive – taking a home out of the general market to optimise it only for handicap owners and buyers. With the right designer-builder, your home can be upgraded to the specific needs of your family. Also adding beauty and market value with features any homeowner would dream of.
Modern home design techniques and styles make it possible to make your home ergonomically welcoming for mobility-impaired while increasing beauty and value at every turn. Join us as we explore the possibilities of custom home design for beautiful and accessible home upgrades.
The Art of Ergonomics in the Home
One of the biggest shifts in home design trends is a focus on ergonomics. It’s the flow and efficiency of people in a workspace. What started as a workplace study has become the art of flow and efficiency inside the home as well. Especially with so many people now working at home, today.
Simple and Elegant Ergonomic Home Improvements
- Open floorplans
- Wide doors and archways
- Elegant interior ramps
- Fold-away and slide-out features
- Smooth floor transitions
- Mixed-metal handrail design
- Smart-home automation
- Surfaces that raise and lower
- Artistic accessible shelf design
Ergonomics blends workplace design with modern home design elements. It is now no longer unusual to see an elegant handrail alongside the steps down into your den. Using the rise of industrial-bohemian design and mixed-metal finishes, handrails now blend perfectly into post-modern home decor.
The popularity of open floorplans, especially in luxury home design, has also popularised wide, sweeping walkways where a spiral ramp can be more elegant than a short set of stairs. Wider doorways, as well as open archways, make homes feel more spacious. The strong push toward smart homes has made electronic doors and multi-height countertops all part of the cutting-edge, voice-activated design.
The Rise of Accessibility in a Home Office Design
One thing employers didn’t see coming in the WFH shift is that many people work more efficiently in a custom home office. Why? Because it can be custom-tailoured to your ergonomic needs. It’s far easier to design the perfect shelves, floorplan, and furniture selection for accessibility at home than to request an accommodation from every employer. Office design methods pioneered by digital professionals with physical handicaps have been discovered by the mainstream – to the delight of millions with less visible (and often unmentioned) orthopedic concerns that they were toughing out in once-size-fits-all workplaces.
Working with a designer-builder, home office upgrades for accessibility can also add elegance and functionality that any buyer could appreciate. Thus, adding overall value to the home design. The trick is to combine universal design principles alongside the specific upgrades that will make your home office more comfortable and efficient for your needs, today.
Accessible Home Office Improvements
- Polished floors ideal for rolling
- Built-in and easy-to-reach storage
- Wainscotting and handrail design
- Hidden lighting to eliminate shadows
- Subtle bench seating
- High-set outlets and integral baseboard cable management
We can help you design an office that perfectly suits your needs in a way that is elegant and ergonomic for anyone who steps into the space. Shelves that are well-lit and easy to reach mean less hauling or stretching to manage office supplies. A built-in desk can ensure the floor stays clutter-free. The right choice of flooring can also provide traction for unsteady steps and a smooth roll for both wheelchairs and that perfect ergonomic office chair. Not to mention what we can do for subtle and built-in cable management with in-reach outlet design.
The Rise of Hidden Features in the Home
From the Tiny House craze (just before the pandemic had everyone looking for more space), the population fell in love with hideaway and multi-purpose home features. The handicap community has long known that slide-out organisers and fold-out features are the key to an efficient home design. And now the general public is eagerly jumping on board!
This is great news when it comes to designing the perfect accessible home that will delight current guests and future buyers with slide-out, fold-away, as well as hidden features in every room. Many handi-capable kitchens feature ingenious upgrades that modern chefs now adore. Slide-out and fold-down organisers are only the beginning. You can also install fold-out prep surfaces at comfortable wheelchair height and pop-out appliances that don’t require heft to take out or put away.
Fold-away dining tables leave floorspace clear outside of mealtimes. And the innovations in hose-style sink design make nearly any prep style possible. You can have slide-out hampers built below the laundry machines as well as hidden bench storage and seating throughout the house.
The Smart Home Revolution for Handicap Home Design
The smart home trend is one of the greatest developments in accessible home design – a trend everyone is clamoring for. Smart homes bring home automation to a whole new level. Most people started with voice-activated music and colour-changing lights. But smart homes have also popularised hidden and useful tech throughout the home.
Smart thermostats eliminate the need to reach for the control panel. Smart door locks, latches, and bells will save you thousands of steps every year as the door answers itself. These smart appliances can also do half the work for you and make it easy to do things like check on a baking pie or start coffee in the morning automatically.
Some of our favourite high-tech accessibility upgrades include countertops, shelves, stoves, as well as sinks that can raise and lower to the height of the user. This isn’t just welcoming for those in wheelchairs – it’s also friendlier for especially tall and short standing chefs, and for children in the kitchen.
Working with a Designer-Builder for Beautiful and Ergonomic Accessibility Home Upgrades
Here at Carlyle Construction, we believe that every home renovation is an opportunity to create beauty and functionality in a single project. Accessibility upgrades don’t have to be clunky or follow the stainless steel trends of the past. Today, home design is all about elegant ergonomics. Homeowners are focusing on making homes more efficient; enhancing spacious design with comfortable access.
Between hidden features and smart home innovations, your home can be both handicap accessible as well as a competitive contender on the housing market without having to choose one or the other. Our design will elegantly combine the ergonomics you need for a comfortable home with the modern design styles that are boosting home values in today’s market. With the help of a designer-builder, every improvement can be both beautiful and delightfully useful to your family today.
Ready to begin transforming your home for accessible elegance? Contactez-nous today.