When Jim Ellis, 80, couldn’t push his walker through the narrow entry of the bathroom in his Amherst home, his wife Trish Farrington, started to worry.
She thought that they might have to leave the house where they had lived for more than two decades, where they made memories, tended to their gardens and laughed with friends at gatherings.
“Jim couldn’t get into that skinny bathroom. … It was a tiny, little room with just a sink and a toilet — it was really narrow.”
Farrington would lay awake at night pondering solutions. She contemplated knocking down walls. She thought about constructing a bathroom in their large open living room. But none of her ideas seemed feasible for their 1950s ranch style home.
“It’s hard to plan for something when you can’t even imagine,” she said.
She and her husband talked about moving out of state to be closer to grown children, but decided that their connections to Amherst ran too deep.
“This is our home and it’s hard to think about leaving,” Farrington said.
But then an internet search turned up Aging in Place Builders, a family business in Northfield that specializes in accessible design and she found her remedy.
Owner Bill LaBombard visited the couple’s home, spoke to them about their routines and needs and devised a plan that widened the bathroom entrance, enlarged the space by knocking down and rebuilding a wall to extend the bathroom into a walk-in closet, and installed two exterior ramps.
The renovation cost $26,000.
“It looks really nice,” Farrington said, “so whatever it was, it was worth it,”
LaBombard, who runs Aging in Place with his sons Mike and Jeff LaBombard, says they do hundreds of renovations like this each year, not only to help the elderly and infirm stay in their homes, but to help people prepare for adjustments advancing age will require.
LaBombard says in addition to homeowners, he often meets with doctors and physical therapists to determine an individual’s needs. If a client’s condition changes, he says, Aging In Place can always return to do a re-evaluation.
“We ask, ‘What can we do to keep you in your home?’ ” LaBombard said. “We will do whatever it takes.”
Mostly they install ramps, which typically run from a couple of thousand dollars to $15,000, depending on the complexity. They also construct homes from the ground up and they have converted garages into accessible add-on apartments, which run at least $100,000.
The idea is that all of us will grow old, none of us is immune to accidents, and nobody wants to leave home, LaBombard said.
“People don’t want to admit that it can happen to them,” he said. “Probably our biggest challenge is getting people to accept.”
Ellis’ disability came on slowly, creeping up on the couple year after year as he battled a nerve disorder called stenosis, which left him with numbness in his legs. But still they rarely thought about how to prepare their home until their narrow bathroom forced the issue five years ago.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, one out of every five people has a disability, but, LaBombard says, few have homes that accommodate their needs, leaving some unable to climb stairs or reach the faucets from the low-seated positions of wheelchairs.
Before she contacted the LaBombards, Farrington had hired a handyman who built a ramp leading to their front door, but the slope was too steep.
There was no grip for traction on the ramp, which would make it slippery in the winter, Mike LaBombard said. The railing was too high for someone in a wheelchair.
“It was a joke,” he said. “Somebody who was using a walker or wheelchair could not get up this ramp.”
A carpenter for about 45 years, Bill LaBombard starting thinking about specializing his construction work when he took a job with the Northampton Council on Aging, directing contractors who visit seniors in their homes to do small repairs.
He incorporated Aging in Place in 2008, the only construction company in the area focused on this kind of work, he says.
But he also has seen firsthand how accessible design can change lives.
He and his sons had the foresight to build his father, Wayne LaBombard, an accessible in-law apartment about 13 years ago, when the elder LaBombard was well into his 80s, but still able to take long walks.
They transformed an old garage at one of the adult grandchildren’s homes into an apartment and connected it to the house with a series of ramps.
They built a shower that Wayne could roll a wheelchair into, making it big enough so a caretaker could accompany him. The mirror was placed lower so that he could shave. “Everything was accessible to him from a wheelchair,” Mike LaBombard said. “We were thinking ahead.”
Now deceased, Wayne LaBombard lived the last 13 years of his life in that apartment, where he went from relying on a cane to needing a wheelchair when he broke his hip.
He was able to watch his great grandchildren grow up, Mike LaBombard said. “He didn’t want to be anywhere else. He wanted to be with family.”
Most people, LaBombard says, don’t prepare that way. “… A lot of people unfortunately can’t think that far ahead.”
Most of the calls his company gets are from people who have an immediate need, he says. They might be newly disabled and live on the third floor of a condo and can’t get inside.
But while the majority of their clients are already disabled, the Aging in Place builders say everyone should think of the future.
“All you need is one fall and it is going to change your life,” Mike LaBombard said. “Accessible design allows you to use your home no matter what happens.”
Farrington calls the LaBombards a godsend.
The renovations not only benefit her husband, she says, but other visitors to their home, like mothers with strollers who can also use the ramps outside. “It kind of just makes sense for anyone, not just disabled people,” she said.
Walking into the couple’s home, visitors might not notice that the house is wheelchair accessible. The front ramp is set low at the front door. “It’s really attractive and it isn’t visible from the driveway,” Farrington said. There is also a ramp leading to the back porch.
Grab bars in the bathroom make it easier for Ellis to lift himself from the wheelchair to the plastic chair in the shower.
“These grab bars are lifesavers for Jim,” she said.
A hand-held showerhead accompanies an overhead one. “It’s good for people who are disabled because you can do a hand-held rinse,” she said.
After construction on their home was completed, the couple was so pleased with the work that they invited their friends and the contractors to the house to celebrate.
Since then, Ellis has transitioned to using a wheelchair full time. And, as his condition continues to change, so does his home.
The rugs from a vacation in Morocco are now rolled up in the corner of the living room and the couches have been shifted to make room for Ellis’ wheelchair to travel around them.
But, Farrington says, the couple no longer worries about leaving the home they have grown to love. “Too much of our life is right here.”
Lisa Spear can be reached at lspear@gazettenet.com.