Java Joe’s Response to a New bathroom to meet a clients special accessibility needs!
This project was quite a challenge. The customer’s master bathroom reflected the values of a by-gone era- very small bathroom.
The layout was a very cramped 4′ deep by 7′ wide, with a fairly large 4′ x 3′ shower opening off through a very narrow 16″ shower door.
As we talked, I identified the different goals of the customer. We needed to identify which items were priorities and which were on the ‘wish list.’
In the priority list were the following:
-A WALK-IN SHOWER large enough for a wheel chair and/or shower chair.
-Room for POWER-LIFT maneuverability -to access the shower and the commode
-BIDET WAND for personal hygiene at the commode
And in the wish list side were the following:
-keep master bedroom space
-express the customer’s artistic sense and creativity
She was taking care of her elderly mother (86) and wanted to be able to use a lift in the future to help her mother to the commode and shower area.
My first thought was the obvious- we would have to take space from the bedroom by moving the wall separating the bathroom and bedroom two or three feet. This would give us the needed interior space. We would have the required 5′ circle for ADA compliant standards. But as I considered the use of the power lift, I realized that even the 5′ circle wouldn’t be enough.
And when I looked at the bedroom, I realized that moving the wall separating the bathroom/bedroom would leave us with only an 11′ wide master bedroom, hardly big enough to qualify as a spare bedroom. That would have killed the resale value of the house. So there had to be another alternative.
As I brought my subs into the project to see what they thought could be done, their responses were fairly predictable…”you can’t do this!” You can’t take a 4′ deep space and use it to make a wheelchair accessible bathroom. No way!
Then a simple thought occurred to us, why don’t we just put in a 72″ wide ‘quad’ door, which would open up the space available to the bathroom by ‘borrowing’ that space from the bedroom. And by using French door style panels, we could get an open and classy feel to the whole layout.
Concerning the bidet wand, plumbing code wouldn’t allow us to put in a mixing valve to supply the bidet wand because of hygiene concerns of backflow into freshwater supply. We would have to use cold water, quite an invigorating proposition but not what the average person would like.
Instead, we chose to install a Washlet- a bidet seat by Toto. It offers endless heated water, heated air drying, anti-microbial plastic, self-cleansing before and after each use. Not exactly the status quo for Waco, TX! But, hey, someone has to be a pioneer in Central Texas in the quest for cleanliness and happiness!
It can be seen in the photos of the China Spring project. It is about the size of a normal toilet seat and works very well. Toto has refined their design for over 25 yrs. Another benefit of the Toto Washlet is that the home-owner can take it with them with no major remodel. Simply re-install a normal toilet seat in place of the Washlet.
With dual shower wands in the 4′ x 4′ shower, grab bars, and tile on the walls with deco tile accents, we managed to meet all the major goals of the customer.
The end result was quite impressive. A classy bathroom which allowed a loved-one to care for her aging mother without having to put her into a nursing home. And this was done preserving the resale value of the house.
Very satisfying,
Java Joe
January 16th, 2008 at 6:17 pm
An update:two months later I was called back to this house in Waco Texas because the Toto washlet wasn’t working. When I arrived, the GFCI plug had been tripped and I simply had to push the reset button.
But the interesting thing to me was to see how (spontaneously and unsolicited) adamant the grandmother was about using the washlet and how strongly she recommended it to anyone who would listen.
See the video on the home page westhomesoftexas.com