I forgot all about putting this up here on the blog — my hand drawn basement floor plan that has been the cause of so many “opportunities”! Here’s where our elevator will lead!
Of course, it says “Final”, but it’s really not! The last big thing that changed (and it only changed last week) is that the bathroom door moved clockwise to open into the Train Room instead of opening into the hallway. That gave us a little more room to spread out the dual sinks (they’re shown now as together in a vanity) and put a 12″ drawer base cabinet between them. I switched to the wall hung sinks to gain back a little space for turning radius.
Sorry it’s not very pretty — there will never be a CAD drawing of the basement, only this hand drawn plan that has gotten the job done! — but at least you can see how we set up our ridiculously large amount of space to be accessible, usuable and (ultimately) sellable one day.
The two main rooms in the basement are the Train Room and the Therapy Room — both for Jim and both with the same goal — to get him up and doing more than he is today so that he begins to enjoy life again. You see all that storage space? That’s where his massive collection of trains will be kept. I’ll have a carpenter build a train table for him and I’m hoping that building the layout, doing the scenery and getting the trains operating will be a project for Jim to work on with the rest of us as his apprentices! I think Jacob would make a fine next-gen train guy! 🙂
The Therapy Room is identical in size to the master bedroom and has a huge closet to store the “torture devices” that Jim loves so much! His mat table will be moved in there and all of his therapy stuff that’s currently in storage will make its way down there. I hoping (actually, expecting) that once Jim gets to using his new Second Step Gait Harness System (currently wending its way from Colorado to WA), he’ll spend way more time on his feet in the device than he will just doing exercises in the Therapy Room!
So there are two current, real bedrooms but Storage #1 is designed for a future closet to be added up against the stairs (it could go elsewhere too, potentially) and it could be another bedroom — we made sure it had a window that met egress codes.
The family room area will be set up with some comfortable chairs or a small sofa and a flat screen TV on an articulated arm and a DVD player. That way Jim can watch his many train videos while he’s working on his layout. Sounds kind of like choo-choo-nirvana!
Although it won’t serve to get him up to the driveway area, the door from the family room will have a platform and ramp that leads over to a flat area away from the house on the edge of the property. It will be landscaped and normally be just a pretty place to sit and enjoy the flora and the view. But if there were ever an emergency that would require Jim to exit the basement quickly, he would be able to safely get clear of the house. The slope on either side of the house is currently too steep for his wheelchair to travel on so I’m guessing that, in a true emergency, he would have to be manually taken from that area by rescue people.
So that’s the tour of our accessible lower level. Reservations from friends and family welcomed and encouraged! 🙂
Living a Rewarding Life in the Great NW 