Understanding Bathroom Design - Design for the Elderly and Disabled - Home - Interior Design

Professional bathroom designers are masterful at merging both function and form to create breathtaking results. In this eight-part series which I call London Bathroom Design, I draw on my experience working with some of Londons top bathroom designers to explain this exciting field. This fourth article focuses on designing for older individuals.

Are you getting older and finding it harder to move around your home? I've worked a great deal with the elderly or disabled in London, and I love to help homeowners make their familiar spaces into wheelchair-accessible dream bathroom designs by decluttering, restyling and helping do away with any troublesome stairs. I love to see the residents' reactions to their new bathroom designs. Even if your budget isn't big, the payoff definitely can be when you re-envision your London bathroom from drab to fab - the wheelchair way. A fresh new bathroom design can be a critical component of the modern, disabled-friendly home.

Even a cosmopolitan, youth-orientated world city like London has more than its fair share of older individuals. With the UKs aging population, bathroom designers are being called on more than ever to create inspired bathrooms for the elderly or disabled. The perfect bathroom design for an elderly couple or individual will promote accessibility while also preserving a great sense of style. Many elderly people luxuriate in the morning by enjoying a relaxing bathing hour, a delicious cup of tea, and watching the morning soap operas on TV. For this purpose, the ideal bathroom design for the elderly could include sparkling glass toilets, chic lighted countertops, and high-gloss cabinets to house a kettle and home entertainment centre.

Aching joints can be a problem for many old age pensioners. Bathroom designers can choose to incorporate speciality baths that feature massage jets and low-rise tubs that are easy to access. In larger London residences, a bathside deck can be a great benefit allowing the elderly to sit down and gently lower themselves into the hot bathwater.

For the wheelchair-bound, a roomy roll-in shower often serves as a highly sought-after bathroom design feature. The convenience of a hand-held shower head together with on-wall in-shower seating allows for a great washroom experience that rivals the most luxurious London spas.

In the next article in my series Understanding Bathroom Design, Ill focus on London's latest trends in environmentally-friendly design.

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