Five Hacks and Products to Make Your Kitchen More Wheelchair Accessible
A well-designed kitchen with a few thoughtful additions can make cooking your favorite meals easier and more enjoyable. Here are three product solutions to help you cook up a feast, along with two easy hacks to boost your enjoyment.
November 1, 2022
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Hack 1
Pull-Out Cutting Boards Below Oven and Microwave
Whether you have limited heat sensation or not, pulling a piping hot dish out of the oven or microwave can be a recipe for unwanted burns or other kitchen nightmares. Eric Thorstenson opted for an easy way to minimize those risks: adding swing-away cutting boards under his side-opening oven (see above) and microwave. “If I lean over and grab something hot, I can put it on the cutting board instead of my lap,” he says, adding that the cutting boards make checking and serving hot food much easier.
Hack 2
Put Casters on Your Kitchen Table
So you found the dream dining room or breakfast table, but it’s too low or doesn’t fit your room? Adding some heavy-duty locking casters could be an easy solution to the problem. Todd Stabelfeldt (right) and his wife, Karen, added casters to their beautiful bespoke hardwood table to transform it into an iconic-yet-mobile centerpiece. “It makes it easy to entertain, even if we have a bunch of power chair users over,” says Stabelfeldt, a C4 quad.
Side Door Oven
If you’re a wheelchair user, downward-opening oven doors can make it difficult to put in or take out your favorite meals. Thankfully, designers are beginning to move past this staid tradition and embrace sleek, microwave-like side-opening doors. Eric Thorstenson, a C5-6 quad, loves the easy access his Bosch side-opener offers. “Being able to roll right up to the racks makes using the oven a lot safer,” he says.
Pot Filler
For those of you who haven’t heard of pot fillers, they’re exactly what they sound like: faucets designed and specifically placed above the stove to fill pots. Boring? Maybe. Practical? Definitely. By adding a water line near your stove and getting one of the many pot fillers on the market, you can avoid the hassle of lugging heavy pots of water on your lap from the sink to cooktop. “I honestly don’t know why more people don’t have them,” says Rosemarie Rossetti, a T11 para and the designer of the Universal Design Living Laboratory.
Active Hands Kitchen Pack Deluxe
UK-based Active Hands Company makes plenty of handy kitchen gadgets designed for cooks with limited hand function. The Kitchen Pack Deluxe combines 10 of the most popular tools — the all-purpose knife, 5-in-1 opener, jar opener and more — all in one bundle that sells for 25% less than they would individually. Our reviewer’s favorite was the Nimble, which he described as “essentially a tiny box cutter in a rubber sleeve that fits on the tip of a finger.” Activehands.com.
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