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Custom Shower Seat and Grab Bars - Safety in Bathroom Remodeling

Are you a DIYer looking to sharpen your skills, looking for solutions for home improvement

issues, getting advice needing to hire a contractor, and staying up to date on the latest the industry

has to offer on news and trends?

You are in the right place.

Welcome to discover your home with your host, Mark Lotz.

Good evening everybody.

Mark here at Discover Your Home and I'm going to talk to you a little bit about a topic

since we do a lot of bathrooms and kitchen remodelling where I talk tonight real shortly

about remodeling that master bath, shower or hall bath shower, and maybe some things

you might want to include in doing your shower.

And I'm going reflect a little bit about what happened to me late last year in the fall.

I had an accident and broke my fibula right down by my ankle, and so I was somewhat incapacitated

might be the word.

I had a hard time getting around and realized when it came to showering, how challenging

of a deal it was because you take for granted every day, you go into the shower, you roll

the door, you're in your shower, you're out.

Now, it's more about hopping in and hobbling your way into it and what really came back

to for me was, I'm a little bit bigger guy and so my wife, being the sweetheart that

she is, went out and bought me one of these little hospital chairs to shower in because

I guess the thing you don't realize is, how unstable your body is, especially in an area

where there's water, there's soap.

there's kind of a relatively slick surface.

I think our base in our shower is a fiberglass base so, trying to maintain your balance while

showering and getting in and getting out can be a little difficult.

So, there's some things I want to talk to you folks about in regards to some of the

things that when you go to redo your shower that you really might want to need.

There's three basic things that I felt after the fact would be nice when the time comes

for us to remodel our shower that will work a little bit better for us in those situations.

And there again, I'm not getting any younger so access to your shower,

getting in and out of there.

You want to make it a little more convenient for yourselves.

As I said, as we age as a population, some of these things that we don't really think

we need really become a convenience.

So, when it's time that you're going to go out and remodel your bathroom, here's what

I'm going to suggest.

First, definitely go ahead and put in a bench seat.

Now, there's several different things you can do there in that respect.

Instead of having this portable one, which worked fabulous for the time that I was in

there when I needed it, being a bigger guy, it was a little rickety for somebody like

me, so I didn't necessarily feel as comfortable in there.

So, make sure maybe you do a built-in bench, or they also sell benches that kind of fold

down and fold back up.

Some more like a molded plastic, some have a little fancier kind of teak wood.

There's a lot out there, so investigate what works best for you if you're looking to do

kind of a fold down seat.

Also, you can just kind of build out the bench.

There are a couple of different companies out there that have molded products

that you can kind of fit in place and then tile around.

And there's a lot that actually you can do with that height because everyone's built

a little bit differently.

Some are a little taller, some a little shorter.

Also, the nice thing is, you can do some heated seats in there too.

So, I know that ceramic or porcelain can get a little cold but you can put a heater in

that bathroom for that heated seat which would make it a little bit more comfortable.

The second thing I'm going to recommend are grab bars or safety bars.

Now, I know in the word safety bar usually doesn't draw an image of beautiful.

It's practical and very pragmatic, so what I'm going to recommend is take a look around.

There's a lot that's out there that's available.

The grab bars aren't just rounded bars, nothing fancy, got a kind of a rough surface to them.

There's a lot that's out there that's a little bit more decorative.

You can find with Kohler and stuff, using them as an example, that there are product

wise that something that if you've got chrome hardware, your bath fixtures are all chrome,

they can do it in Chrome.

You've got like oil rubbed bronze, brushed nickel, brushed bronze, so there's a lot that's

out there that you can really kind of incorporate and make it look beautiful in the shower.

But I'm going to tell you what really makes a difference is being able to have access

to pull yourself up, to be able to get up if you have an injury to your ankle or your

knee or hip.

So, I've had a few customers the last five years that have had hip surgeries, knee surgeries.

So, you might want to think about this when that time comes to really go and get that

new shower to go ahead and put those items in.

The third thing that I didn't really think about until really after one of my customers

and I had a long discussion but it really does make sense is the shower wands.

When you have your simple shower head and you have a diverter to a shower wand, I find

that more and more of my clients are asking for it, and after thinking about it, actually

would have been nicer, especially incorporated with the seat, because of the fact that you're

going to find that your seat, not in all cases, but a lot of the seats that we have installed

for our clientele have been a little further back.

So, you want to have a hose that can reach all the way across the size of the bath, the

shower.

So, a lot of times what we're thinking is, you know these sort of things don't happen

to me.

Oh, I'm never hurt.

I'll never break my ankle or whatever.

My wife, she had a torn MCL two years ago and this year, I broke my ankle.

You got kids in the house, you'd be surprised, you know if they're playing soccer or football

or volleyball or whatever, a twisted ankle, broken ankle can make it real inconvenient.

So, even in your kids' bathrooms, the Jack and Jill bathrooms, then just the grab bar

alone could assist in that.

So, you might want to think about planning for that.

So, if you guys have any questions in regards to things that you need to know in your bathroom

and you have questions about things that you can help use in your bathroom, don't hesitate

to reach out to us.

Again, this is Mark at Discover Your Home.

Thank you for joining us this evening and we'll see you guys next week.

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of Discover your Home with your host, Mark

Lotz, online at LotzRemodeling.com That's LotzRemodeling.com and on Twitter and Facebook

LotzRemodeling.

We'll catch you next time.

Custom Shower Seat and Grab Bars - Safety in Bathroom Remodeling