Goodbye cooking and many other disasters, Hello accessible kitchens!

The definition of cooking to me means catching kitchen towels on fire, burning my hand on the oven, exploding water on the stove (literally it exploded) and a lot of inedible burnt food! Those examples are just a few of the crazy situations I have gotten myself in to in the kitchen; in other words, when I cook it spells DISASTER! But the good thing is that I have solved the problem, well kind of, my lack of cooking skills is the first issue, and the second is that my kitchen is just not accessible to me.

Looking back at all of the “sticky” situations I have gotten myself into is awfully funny, sometimes downright awful but I’m at the point where I no longer want to eat food out of a box! I even thought about taking a cooking class but feared I might be asked not to come back after they realize what having me in the class means their getting into. Anyway, the whole topic of accessible kitchens interested me because I have never lived in a place with an accessible kitchen so I started doing some research and found two pretty cool sites to help with remodeling kitchens to make them completely accessible!

This whole topic was incredibly new to me and I couldn’t believe all that could be done to a kitchen to make it wheelchair accessible! Counters can be lowered, lifts can be installed anywhere from cabinets to shelves even cook tops. Kitchen sinks can be customized, cabinet widths and lengths can be altered, wall cabinets and shelves can be installed at any height and cook tops can be created for the needs of the individual interested in having an accessible kitchen. I was blown away by all of the elements that go into an accessible kitchen and finally had the feeling that I can actually learn how to cook! No more burning my hand on the stove, setting the crock pot on the floor, breaking bowls in the microwave, no more flipping fried eggs straight onto the floor because I can’t see the stove top and finally no more eating pasta that tastes like gum because I got tired of lifting myself up every 2 seconds to see how it was come along on the stove! I might actually be able to stop replacing my burnt kitchen towels when I get an accessible kitchen, who would have thought that could ever happen?!

The possibilities were endless to me after I looked at these sites and for those of you that are disabled, this could be you too! It was interesting to me because the kitchens weren’t just for wheelchairs; they customize kitchens for tall and short people who aren’t disabled at all! The companies I researched are making cooking possible for all types of people! Imagine the possibilities, I only checked out 2 websites out of hundreds! So do your research, and check out these links even if you aren’t disabled and look at all the amazing things they can do to help people learn or enjoy cooking in an accessible kitchen! I myself can’t wait until I can purchase a home and create an accessible kitchen, let’s just hope as I learn to cook I don’t burn the house down! Remember, do what you want to do, achieve whatever you want, and don’t let anything stop you! After all IT’S JUST A CHAIR!

(if you want to do your own research go to Google and type in accessible kitchens, yes its that easy!)

http://www.barrierfree.org/accessible-kitchen

http://www.handicap-accessible-kitchens.com/index.htm