Bathroom Modifications

~Just because I Love this picture~

Hello There!

I've got some Bathroom modification pictures today. I don't have a pic of what our bathroom looked like before we remodeled it the first time, but it was small. What we did was take the bathroom in our bedroom (which backed up to this bathroom) out and used the extra room to make Sarah's bathroom bigger.
This is the hydraulic chair lift that Sarah used for years and years. As you can tell she is young in the first pic and older in the second! The people that worked with my husband got together through a program they had at work to help others and had a Brunswick stew sale to raise money for the chair.

Sarah loved that the chair went up and down with the turn of a button on the armrest. The only drawback was that she couldn't get in and out of it by herself because it swiveled and there was no way to stop it from moving. I had to hold it still while she transferred to it.

Well, there was another drawback. This chair was heavy, and we had to transfer it in and out of the tub because Bobby also used this bathroom. After several years, the water wouldn't drain out of it completely, so when you sat it on the floor, you had to put it on LOTS of towels to soak up the water that ran from it.
This picture shows the little sink we put in just for Sarah. The main sink had cabinets underneath, and she couldn't get close enough to it. When we remodeled the first time, we didn't change the original sink area, just painted it. The second sink looked a little unconventional, but it worked for us! We also installed the taller handicapped toilet, which works great for Sarah's transfers.
These pictures are of the remodel we did last year. We took the little sink out and moved the toilet over closer to the tub, and put in a bigger sink. I'd be glad to explain our bathroom routine in detail off line, you can email me @ crystalcooks63@aim.com.

This sink has plenty of room for Sarah to get underneath. There are 3 medicine cabinets put together to make the big mirror that are hung at regular level so Bobby can use them, but Sarah couldn't see up that far, so we added a small mirror under them just for her. (The cabinet above the sink is just a reflection of the wall behind it).
We put drawers on both sides for all of Sarah's stuff. She keeps all of her necessary bathing and primping stuff in there, as well as a few towels and washcloths so she can reach them herself. You can tell she's already "broke in" the cabinets at the bottom by scraping them with her wheelchair! Tis the normal look of furniture for "Wheelchair Families", lol!!
Because she spends so much time in the bathroom on "Bath and Beauty" days (Bowel Program Days), Robert put in a Cable hookup for TV and an electrical socket for her Stereo, and will eventually put a shelf there to hold those things. By the way, all of the wall cabinets in the bathroom are recycled kitchen cabinets from that remodel!!
Now Sarah uses a regular bath chair. It works well for her, despite our initial reservations. She can transfer herself over to the chair and showers all by herself. This is her "Me Time", and she can be in that shower for 2 hours plus (Thank goodness she doesn't run the water the whole time)!! And don't bother her while she's in there, you'll be sorry, won't you Nanny?
You can't really see it, but there is a switch on the other side of the showerhead. One way makes the water run from the showerhead. The other lets the water run to Sarah's shower wand.
Robert fixed this so that Sarah could hold the wand while she showered, and it didn't hang down from the showerhead. As you can see in the picture, there is a place built into her chair to hold the wand. This chair was donated to us by My Aunt Georgia and Uncle Don, better know as Dr. Aunt Georgia and Santa Claus!!