no need- i found what i'm doing! thanks

We have just had 3 bathrooms tiled - here are photos of each of the niches. They each have a different kind of mosaic tile in the back wall and white field tile (4x4 and bullnose) around the edges. The first and third were pre-formed niches, the middle one the tile guy made on site. The Hardi on the shower walls in each case had 6-mil poly behind it. We added Redguard over the soap niches and over the Hardi joints as well (but not all over the Hardi, to avoid a double-barrier). I do not know whether these would be considered "good" by the pros on here - but I am interested in their opinion and if any are good maybe they will be useful in resolving things with Expo. Good luck!

Lars, accessibility is pretty much catered to the individual disabled cook. You will find this is true when you talk to different people with disability. I had lived in this home & kitchen for 4 years. By the time I had the money to modify it, I knew exactly what I needed more and what I needed less. ie: A kitchen designer advised me to take some floor cabinets out to yield feet area. It would have been nice but my kitchen was so small that I needed cabinets more than I needed room for my feet. If I modified this kitchen right when I moved in, I would have done it all wrong. I wouldn't have had enough time to learn its unique spaces and surroundings (location of appliances, cooktop, sink, etc.). A full wheelchair accessible kitchen can be very expensive! I had looked into moveable wall cabinets or hardware and they were very pricey. I had so much kitchenwares that I needed to keep all the cabinets. Since I could kneel on my power wheelchair to give me height, I could reach the lower and middle shelves of the wall cabinets. As for the upper shelf, I put items that I use a few times a year. To reach that top shelf, I use a drafting chair. For everyday items, they're all stored in the floor cabinets and in the dishwasher. Yes, the DW makes a good cabinet too. I do use the DW daily but instead of taking all the clean dishes out and put them away every day, I just leave them in there. Take them out when use them and put them in the sink after usage. At the end of the day, they go back in the DW for a good shower. If there are still clean dishes in the DW, then, they get to be cleaned again. The plexiglass did not go over the DW. The lines you saw were scratches from the old wheelchair. I have since replaced the front panel of the DW and replaced the wheelchair. Since it's inexpensive to replace the panel, I figured it didn't need plexiglass. With the pullout shelves, kitchenwares became more accessible. However, the pullout were only done to the center shelves. We couldn't do much with the bottom/floor shelves. So, I store my items in rectangular shape baskets with handles. I can pull the baskets out and push them in like pullout shelves. That's something you may want to try. When talking to kitchen designers, one tip I give that I know can be very useful to all wheelchair cooks is to have 180-degree (or more) hinges on all floor cabinet doors. When the door is opened all the way, the door does not take any hallway spacing for wheelchair to move back and forth. My house was built in the mid 70's. At the time, these were the type of hinges installed on kitchen cabinets. Unfortunately, these useful hinges are no longer used in today new built homes. Or at least, in the new homes that I've seen around here. That wallpaper was not bad but it was too busy looking. It made the small kitchen and the small breakfast area looking even smaller. Decorating was even hard. The wallpaper was very intact after 30+ years. So, my handiman texturized it with plaster (to match with the rest of the house) and painted over with a neutral color. It was inexpensive to do and made a whole lot of difference. In the end, money dictated which modifications I could live with and which I couldn't live without.

Does anyone remember Anne of Green Gables, how excited Anne was, during a sleepover at Diana's house, to get to sleep in the spare bedroom? What decadence, what an honor and treat to get to stay in a spare bedroom! It's funny, because my mother arrives this afternoon for a visit with my children. (Of course she'll be happy to see my husband and me as well -- but she's really here for her grandsons!) I was readying one of the guest rooms (we have three) -- one of which is being used for pure storage as, eighteen months later, I am still going through / sorting / unpacking boxes from our move. Ugh. Another guest room is on the main level, and that was a determining factor in our househunting: it must have a nice-sized guest room and full bath on the main level to accommodate anyone who cannot easily maneuver stairs (guests or any of us with a broken foot / leg, etc.). We're also using that room as our den (it has the comfiest sleeper sofa we could find), where the main computer / printer / copier, etc. will live, although wouldn't you know those are all still up in our bedroom (where they were put when we were having the den / bedroom remodeled)! It looks like a college dorm in my room. Which leads me to the third guest room, the one nearest my sons' rooms. My children love having their grandmother (my mother) stay there so that in the morning they can go in and cuddle with her. (They'd also like to visit with my father but he visits less frequently; his excuse is he needs to stay home and take care of their pets, but the truth is, he walks with a cane and is too proud to ask for a wheelchair at the airport [stupid], so travel is v. tiring for him. When we purchased this house I had a broken foot, so it was for that and my father we wanted a house with a main floor bed and bath.) But as I was making the bed with our former bed clothes (we used to have a queen but moved up to a king: the guest bed is also a queen) I was thinking how much I'd like to have pretty bedding just for the guest room. Did you catch the part about my room looking like a college dorm though? We still do not have a bedskirt (and one of our cats uses a corner of the box spring as her personal scratching post, no matter how often we put double-sided tape there or spray her with water -- she's determined!), headboard or pretty window coverings. (although the plantation shutters we installed are attractive and useful, I wanted some panels on either side to "soften" the shutters) So, I am not prepared to spend any money on the guest room, any of them, until I get my bedroom done! (Calico Corners has a sale starting this week so I'll be going to hopefully order a bedskirt and headboard! "sale" -- one of my favorite four letter words!) So I have my Anne of Green Gables dream of having a spare bedroom others would swoon to stay in, but for now I can offer two rooms with a pretty view of the Rocky Mountains, a comfy bed and two little boys who love to cuddle! And that'll have to be good enough. It is for us in our bedroom. I loved reading and seeing what thought and care you all have put into your guest rooms. Your guests are sure to feel v. welcome!