My family and I moved into our new-to-us home a few months ago. Although I don’ t miss our old starter home, I do miss that I had already done all the front work to make the home accessible to my kids. With this new house, there were many things I did right away to prepare the environment and there are a few things left to do to make all of our lives easier.

Completed Preparations:

-In the bedrooms, both kids have all of their clothes accessible to them in easy to manage baskets or hung as outfits. This means that they can get dressed without any adult intervention.

-In the kitchen the children can access the dish and silverware in low drawers, grab a snack or pack a lunch from either the pantry or fridge, or grab a glass of water when needed. This is a similar set-up to our old house (seen here) but the kids now only use the family porcelain dinnerware and glass cups.

-In the bathroom, the sink is much higher than our previous home, but a simple stool does the job and we continue to use our kid shower.

-In the den, we moved our backpack station to make sure that before and after school run smoothly.

What still needs to be done:

-In the bedroom and bathroom the light switches are too high! My son cannot turn his lights on and off or use the restroom at night without help turning on the light. This has caused frustration in my son and annoyance for me! So our solution, until my son grows more, is to install a light switch extender like this one from Montessori Services. It even comes in a two-pack so I think I will only need one set.

A simple tool that can make a big difference to my son’s confidence.

-In the bathroom, the kids have a hard time turning the shower on and getting to a reasonable temperature as the 1940’s fixture and plumbing is fickle. We will solve this one by adding it to the list of home repairs that we are tackling this spring.

Overall, the house is a great space for all for us and I look forward to tackling these minor problems in the future.