Dents and Doors

I completely admit, the first time I drove Barton’s wheelchair in Arizona, I tore off his bedroom door at his apartment, and I admit when we moved into our new house, I got his wheelchair stuck in the bathroom doorway for over twenty minutes with us still inside. But I’m not responsible for all the damage in the house from Barton’s wheelchair.

In fact, Barton and I have dibs on who makes the most dents in the hallway walls. Our hallway is speckled with dents, scrapes and patches of white spackle where we’ve repaired the larger crash damage. 

For now, we’ve taken three doors out and ripped off the trim, making our 1960’s house as accessible as possible. It’s not pretty, but it’s functional. There’s a black scuffmark ring around the entire house where Barton has scraped his boots against the wall or door or the handlebars on the closet door. Yes, I have harped, to no avail, on the dents on the oven, couch or bed when he uses them to shift his weight back in the wheelchair.

And how many times do I have to remind Barton not to let the dogs sit in his lap with the wheelchair still on! (Oh, the fun of a dog-driven wheelchair)

And you thought I was kidding.

While it’s wonderful to dream that Extreme Home Makeover would rebuild a glamorous accessible house with plenty of room, we realize that most likely that will never happen. So we pick one big project a year to tackle.

Obviously when we moved in, a solid ramp was priority number one. And when our work schedules shifted, we had an electric lock installed. Still on the list: expanding the doorways, renovating the bathroom…    – it’s a long list.

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