For many new homeowners the thought of making their property accessible for wheelchair users and people with disabilities is now at the forefront of their mind. Whether it is ensuring that all visitors to your home feel comfortable relaxing and socialising with others, it is also important that they can explore the different rooms throughout your home and join in wherever the party is taking place.
A common place for this fun to take place is a games room, and in this post we explore three quick, but actionable tips for you to ensure your games is equipped and fully stocked for all visitors and guests.
Consider the games you fill your games room with
This is obviously a consideration that is made by anyone lucky enough to have the space in their home to create a games room. It's the age-old question of what will deliver more fun over a long period of time, it might be that you really want a stock car track, or do you go for old school arcades?
Whatever it is you add to your games room consider if that each game or machine is accessible to everyone. For example, if it’s an arcade game, are the controls at the reasonable height? One winner here in many ways is computer games, both old and new. These can be enjoyed by anyone and the bigger the screen the better in many ways as it means even more players can join in!
Are there sports that can be customised for all players?
Building on tip number one, are their mainstream sports that could be tailored slightly to make them more welcoming for everyone?
A great example of this is darts, to make this sport more accessible all that’s need is to move the height of the darboard you’re using. Wheelchair darts is played with the board hanging at eye level, which isn’t a huge change to make to your games room.
You could even have two brackets to hang your dartboard on, meaning your board can be moved quite easily. Both bristle and electronic dartboards can be moved with ease and you should have no fear of damaging a board in this way. There are a number of guides examining the best dart boards online including this one here.
Ensure your games room is wheelchair accessible
Once you have filled your new space with games for all ages and abilities it’s obviously vitally important that you ensure the room is wheelchair accessible.
If you’re planning your home during the building stage this is obviously easier to carry out, and ensuring doors are a certain width etc. can be managed quite easily. If this isn’t the case you can still take in to consideration the need for ramps to avoid any stair access, you can also plan not to overcrowd your games room, meaning the space is easy to navigate for everyone who visits.