Can Tiny Homes Be Good for People With Disabilities?

Living in a tiny home isn’t only for the young adventurer. In fact, tiny houses can provide people with limitations of all sorts of flexibility and comfort. Modern tiny home construction includes options like wheelchair access and showers with grab bars and seating.

Customization Options

If you plan to build a portable tiny house, the only limitation to your design is the footprint of your trailer. Once this has been determined, features including wide doors for wheelchair access, a main floor sleeping area instead of a loft and a large bathroom can be simple to build. Many tiny-home designs feature a loft that’s often used as a bedroom. By putting the bed on the main floor, the loft area can be used for storage.

Cost Comparisons

Modifying an existing, traditional home can be more expensive than getting a custom-built tiny home. The cost to modify a traditional home for wheelchair access will vary widely, depending on when your home was built. For example, if your ranch house has a long hallway and narrow bathroom doors, both the hallway and the doorway limitations will be hard to overcome without a major renovation. One of the walls along the hall is likely load bearing, so expanding the width of the hall may mean changing the footprint of every room on the other side of the hall.

If it is a multistory house with bedrooms upstairs, modifications may not even be possible. Home modifications can be extremely disruptive and may make it almost impossible to sell the house in the future. If you’re a senior citizen trying to stay independent, the cost of the modification may be more than you can bear.

Benefits of Simple, Minimal Living

Tiny house living forces you to reduce the number of items in your possession. For those struggling with limited cognitive abilities from injury, illness or age, moving into a tiny house can reduce the labor of living and the number of choices they need to make on a daily basis. In a tiny house, daily chores are reduced. Choices, including where to sit and what to do, are also lowered. For those with brain injuries or other forms of cognitive loss, the ability to reduce exposure to choices and tasks can actually reduce the overwhelm and emotional upset caused by having too many decisions to make.

Whether your disability is related to your body or your brain, moving into a tiny house can reduce your burdens. By investing in a house that gives you flexibility and simplicity at the same time, you can limit the number of decisions you need to make and reduce fatigue focus. From wider doorways and bigger bathrooms to a simple, manageable home life, tiny house living is truly for people of all abilities.

You might also be interested in this article: Tiny Houses: Everything You Need to Know