We have Lift-off!

The renovations that we made last year have been making our home more accessible for Nickolas. But we still had bigger things for our wish list. The long discussed porch lift.

Last year we applied for, and received a grant from Easter Seals to cover $3000 of the cost of the porch lift, and another $1500 from For the Love of a Child. This made our cost for the lift only $700! So we ordered and got the lift in December.

This was such a big chunk of the $10 000 cost, but we still needed to figure out what we were going to do for the construction portion of it. And I thought about it every time I carried Nick in and out of the house!

Kyle hasn't been working, and as money is getting tighter and tighter $5000 was a lot of money.

So Kyle put his construction hat on this month and built a porch in the garage. Which meant that we could actually get the lift installed!

Kyle got to be the first one to try it out!

And when Nick got home from school we showed him his surprise!

He was a little bit nervous about trying it out

But was excited that this was all his!

He wasn't quite so sure when he pressed the UP button and it started to go...

But pretty sure he got the hand of it

And he made it all the way to the top!
But there still isn't a door, so it is a lift to nowhere at the moment

He didn't really want to go back down

 And back up

We decided to play a trick on Katheryn and hide when she got home from school

We had to wait a long time!

But as soon as she got home she was excited to try it out with Nick!

Until we have the door and use it more regularly, we were told to still run it up and down every couple of days. I don't think that is going to be a problem

Now our updated wish list:

• Open up the entry way into the family, taking down the half wall
• Make a ramp into the family room (needed some space to do this first)
• Make a ramp (or something) into the backyard
• Take out the front hall closet in the foyer. 
• Put handrails on the walls up the stairs 
• Put a doorway from our front hall into the garage
• Add a platform in the garage
• Get a porch lift and install it inside the garage

Hopefully we will get that door by the end of the summer

More Renovations

Kyle was busy while we were in Florida.
We came home to a couple of ramps all ready for Nick!

One was a ramp over the step in our family room, so Nick doesn't have to step down, but can bring his walker in directly.

The other thing he did made this little boy very happy!

He made a ramp into the backyard.
So Nick can access our backyard without any help!

It is a little bit steep (all of these pictures were taken right in a row) and we had Katheryn at the bottom to catch him

But he was so excited!

Nick says "I can go into the backyard all by myself!"

Here is our updated wish list:

• Open up the entry way into the family, taking down the half wall
• Make a ramp into the family room (needed some space to do this first)
• Make a ramp (or something) into the backyard
• Take out the front hall closet in the foyer. 
• Put handrails on the walls up the stairs 
• Put a doorway from our front hall into the garage
• Add a platform in the garage
• Get a porch lift and install it inside the garage

Renovations

Since I wrote about making our house more accessible last December, Kyle and I have had an ongoing wish list of things that we want to do to make the house more accessible.

• Open up the entry way into the family, taking down the half wall
• Raising the family room floor so that Nick can easily bring his walker into the room
• I really didn't want to do this. The step down was a feature that I liked in the house. And it was going to cost a lot of money
• So we had a second idea
• Make a ramp into the family room (needed some space to do this first)
• Make a ramp (or something) into the backyard
• Take out the front hall closet in the foyer. This will give Nick lots of room to move his walker around and open up the front hall space.
• Put handrails on the walls up the stairs to let Nick hold on both sides and walk up the stairs
• Put a doorway from our front hall into the garage
• Add a platform in the garage
• Get a porch lift and install it inside the garage

This was kind of our list of stuff we wanted to do.

It will open up the house and give Nick total accessibility to take his walker anywhere on the ground floor, and out into the backyard. And it will give some maneuver-ability in the front hall.

We got some quotes for some of the work and were shocked at the prices. Thousands of dollars just to put a door into the garage! We wanted to get some other opinions about how much some of the work would cost, because it seemed exorbitant to us.

Kyle and I have still had differing opinions if we want to access the March of Dimes home and vehicle modification grant, this is $15,000 lifetime maximum for home modifications. I didn't want to limit Nick's availability to money that we spend when he is only 5. I wanted to see how much we could do ourselves, and maybe try to apply for money from Easter Seals (max $3,000) annually and see what we could pay out of pocket ourselves. So then we had to step back, and put thinking on hold.

Then Kyle got laid off (which is part of his job and not unexpected)

We had a wish list and Kyle had some time.

So I came home one day to find this...

Kyle took down the half wall and now our dining room and family room were completely open

Nick loved it, and it opened the space up

We had to move some of the furniture around for awhile, but the kids loved this new seat that was just their size!

The next week was time for the front hall closet.
This is how much space we had

Again, when Kyle knocked down the walls it made more space

That was it for renovations for a bit.
But Kyle has a lot of plans for the week that we are in Florida!

This is our wishlist right now:

• Open up the entry way into the family, taking down the half wall
• Make a ramp into the family room (needed some space to do this first)
• Make a ramp (or something) into the backyard
• Take out the front hall closet in the foyer. 
• Put handrails on the walls up the stairs 
• Put a doorway from our front hall into the garage
• Add a platform in the garage
• Get a porch lift and install it inside the garage

Our House, Nick's Home

This has been something on my mind for a while.

This is Our home, our Family home. Nick's home

(This picture was taken when it was all shiny and new)

There are accessibility challenges with our home. What I want is a way to get Nick into the house.

The major issue is the steps. There are 4 steps (average of 7" per step = 28" height).

Guidelines mean that if we were to put in a ramp, it would have to be 28 feet long. Information can be found under Accessible and Adaptable Housing if you are looking for help. 

In my head I thought that instead of a ramp we could have steps that Nick's walker could be lifted (by him) onto the step. I want Nick and his walker to be able to get into the house, not the wheelchair. 

But the Occupational Therapist is the go-to person. So a house assessment was our step to get information from someone who knows about accessibility. Talking with her, we should be looking at a lift.

If we are looking at a lift (a porch lift) there are other considerations too. We walked through the house and around outside with Serena (Nick's OT) and the medical supply guy.

The first question to ask ourselves was inside or outside?

Considering it is December and the ground is covered in snow. A lift inside the garage may be better. We have a one car garage. We don't now or ever plan on parking a car in the garage. Right now it is full of junk, but we can get rid of most of that stuff for the room.

There are questions about permits and if we even can do it. We don't have a door into the house from the garage. But we can (hopefully) add one. We have a header in the garage in the hallway.
Then there is the issue with clearance in the hallway. For an entryway.
Nick can turn around in the hallway in his walker. But there is limited space

Our house entryway has limited space, but a big closet. Also filled with stuff we can relocate. Which gives us a couple of renovation options. A door from house to garage, a larger entryway (taking out the closet) and a porch lift with a landing just inside the garage.

The porch lift comes with a price, the renovation comes with a separate price. We'd need to talk with a contractor about that. There are some one-time only renovation money we can apply for, or there is yearly money we can apply for.
There are a couple of other permit-related challenges we need to figure out as well.

Then we had another conversation.
Are we trying to fit a square peg into a round hole?
Are we trying to make our house accessible only to realize that we can't? It is a 2 story house. Yes we are working to get him into the house, but what about giving him access to the whole house?
Even our family room is a step down.

I don't know what to think after this meeting. We weren't considering moving anytime soon. Yes I know a bungalow is the perfect solution for us. But we have settled in this neighborhood. This is our home. We don't want to move. This was our first house, everything is where I want it to be, I thought and considered every single paint colour on the walls. Designed the kids room (even if I didn't paint them), everything in our home is from our lives together, as a family.

Or am I being selfish? Not considering Nick's ability to move around his own home.

But Nick is mobile. Yes he needs his walker or canes to move, but he can climb the stairs on his feet if we hold one hand, or on his hands and knees by himself. Will that work in a couple of years. I'm not sure.
Will he be able to move better in a couple of years. I'm not sure.
He moves excellent with is walker, his wheelchair stays outside, his canes are usable for small areas and he has forearm crutches that don't really work for him (yet?).

So the visit and talk of accessibility left me very conflicted. And a little bit close to tears. I just want Nick to be able to get into his home!