We're buying a house this week.

There's an interesting thing that happens when you are shopping for a house and you have two people in wheelchairs, one with a variety of special needs.  All of your priorities change.

Well, not all of them, maybe.  You still want a nice neighborhood and a house that is structurally sound.  But things like nice landscaping, updated kitchens and bathrooms, and that big bay window don't really matter any more.  We made up a checklist of things to look for in our new house, and it included items such as "wheelchairs can fit through doors," and "bathroom can be remodeled" and the ever-romantic "less than ten minutes from major hospital."  My husband didn't come look at houses with me, which I suppose is pretty normal in a military family, but it's usually because one spouse is off in another country somewhere and so isn't there to look at the houses, and not because they can't get up the stairs at the front door. 

There were a couple of houses I saw that I could easily have fallen in love with-- the 1908 farmhouse, the sprawling rambler with three koi ponds, the house with the huge sunroom, greenhouse, and apron kitchen door-- but all of them had tiny bathrooms that couldn't be easily remodeled, so sadly they were crossed off the list.  In the end there was only one house out of the seven I looked at two weeks ago that would fit our needs, so that's the one we offered on, and that's the one we're buying.  Good thing I like it.

So now we're going to be remodeling the home to fit our needs.  We're changing the floors out for more wheelchair friendly surfaces, remodeling the bathroom to have a roll-in shower, adding lowered counter tops in the kitchen, and putting in a platform lift up the stairs in the garage, for starters, and we find ourselves in a strange situation once again.  See, we have a huge amount of medical equipment in the house between my son and my husband, and I want a place to live that's beautiful, not just functional.  It's certainly going to be easier than it was ten years ago, with the new Universal Design trend, but making our dreams fit our budget will be an interesting task. 

Universal Design is a new "luxury" design trend focused on making homes accessible for everyone.  It includes things such as level entryways, sinks and countertops with space underneath to roll a wheelchair under, and appliances that offer full access.  Unfortunately as it is a luxury design trend, that means that the appliances and modifications that fit the bill also seem to be more expensive.  I wonder why this is right, when for many people things such as higher toilets or roll-in vanities aren't really luxuries at all, but things needed for them to live independent lives.  Hopefully in a few years Universal Design will become less of a luxury and more, well, universal. 

If we ever do this whole house thing again (hopefully this will be our house for a long, long time) and we had the funds or the right type of loan, it would probably be so much easier to just build a house rather than retrofit it with the things we need.  That wasn't in the cards this time, though so we're going to do our best to balance making all of the changes we need with making the home beautiful.

Wish us luck!

~Jess

Jess, along with her husband Jeremy, and son Connor can be found daily over at her blog, Connor's Song, where you can see how the remodeling is going.