‘Easy Living’ Home Wins Livable Communities Award

	Wendt Bulders award-winning home in Olde Town Grayson, Ga.

Eight years ago Wendt Builders, of Snellville, Ga., got involved in a pilot program designed to promote accessibility and it has since received the first “Easy Living Home” designation in its state.

Roy Wendt turned those early efforts into a passion, and a home built by Wendt in Olde Town Grayson, Ga. was recognized in a Dec. 11 ceremony in Washington, D.C. as one of five winners of the AARP-NAHB Livable Communities Award.

For a home to be certified under the Easy Living Home program, it must include three simple design features:

1. Easy Access — a step-free entrance into the central living area of the home from a driveway, sidewalk or firm route into the main floor.
   
   
2. Easy Passage — ample room to pass through doorways on the main floor.
   
   
3. Easy Use — a bedroom, kitchen, entertainment area and a full bathroom with sufficient maneuvering space for a wheelchair all located on the main floor accessible via the step-free entrance.

Wendt Builders’ award-winning home in the category of “Builder, over 2,500 square feet” met these three criteria and kept going with other features designed to make the home easier to use for people of all ages and abilities.

	A doorless, barrier-free shower improves accessiblity.

The home’s bathrooms include doorless, barrier-free showers even with the tile bathroom floor; curbless seats; and a secondary hand-held shower for residents with limited mobility. Comfort-ease toilets are higher than the standard model and raised vanities eliminate the need for bending over. Decorative assist bars in the shower and toilet areas improve their safety and make them easier to use.

Kitchen designs enhancements include deep, easy-to-use drawers that increase storage space and reduce the need for cabinet doors that are hard to reach. Track lighting under kitchen cabinets provides ample light for kitchen surface areas.

	The kitchen features deep drawers and track lighting under the kitchen cabinets.

Rope lighting is available as night lighting throughout the home, there are lever handles on all the doors and light switches are large.

In the laundry room, the washer and dryer are situated on raised platforms so their front-loading doors are at chest height for easy loading and unloading without extensive bending.

	The washer and dryer are on a raised platform.

For more information about the Livable Communities Award, click here, or e-mail Blake Smith at NAHB, or call him at 800-368-5242 x8583.

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