In April 2025, IKEA launched a six-piece collection called BÄSINGEN built around one idea: everyday home products that work for more people. The pieces, aimed mainly at the bathroom, include non-slip feet, drainage holes, and thick diameters that are easier to grip. The design brief behind them matters more than the individual products, because the market is enormous. More than 70 million adults in the United States report having a disability, and in a 2022 national poll, 88 percent of adults said it was important to remain in their homes for as long as possible. Staying put usually requires changes to the house itself, and most of those changes follow the same rules covered in an accessible bathroom design and construction guide.
The Demand Behind Accessible Home Design
Accessibility is a circumstantial issue as much as a permanent one. A broken arm, a knee surgery, a new baby, or simply aging changes how a person uses a faucet, a shower, or a cabinet. Wâtte Zijlstra, an IKEA product design developer, put it plainly: many people experience common circumstantial changes that can make something as simple as taking a shower challenging, yet the home environment is often not equipped for change.The need extends beyond the front door. Vehicles and workplaces get the same specification treatment, and fleet buyers sourcing upfitted work trucks weigh similar trade-offs between standard options and custom modifications. The decision framework, identify the user, measure the task, and spec the solution, is identical.The bathroom is the site of a large share of falls among older adults, and falls remain a leading cause of injury in that age group. Wet floors, hard fixtures, and moves that require balance combine into a daily risk that most people adapt to until an incident happens. Designing the room to remove those risks helps everyone, including visitors with no known disability.
Who Needs Accessible Homes
The audience includes people with permanent disabilities, older adults, children, and anyone recovering from injury. Universal design serves all of them with the same solution, which is why it beats retrofitting for one person’s specific condition.
Aging in Place by the Numbers
Over 70 million U.S. adults report a disability.
88 percent of adults want to stay in their homes as long as possible.
Most falls happen in the bathroom, where wet floors, hard surfaces, and tight clearances combine.
Accessibility upgrades typically broaden the buyer pool if the home is ever sold.
What Universal Design Looks Like in Practice
Universal design means products and spaces usable by everyone without adaptation or special equipment. Seven principles anchor the approach: equitable use, flexibility in use, simple and intuitive operation, perceptible information, tolerance for error, low physical effort, and size and space for approach and use. The BÄSINGEN pieces hit several of these at once with features that cost little to manufacture: non-slip feet keep stools and steps planted, drainage holes stop water from pooling, and thick diameters give hands more surface to grip.New product development across the building industry follows the same playbook: identify a specific user problem and engineer a solution, whether the product is an accessible bath stool or the steel products launched by New Castle Building Group. The lesson for homeowners is that accessibility features do not have to look institutional.Universal design also produces solutions that everyone uses. The curb cut built for wheelchairs serves strollers, delivery carts, and rolling luggage, and a non-slip bath stool designed for an injured knee works for a tired parent. When a feature helps the most vulnerable user, it tends to help every other user as well.
Product Features That Remove Friction
Non-slip feet and pads on anything that stands on wet floors.
Drainage holes in trays, baskets, and organizers.
Thick, textured grips on handles, knobs, and rails.
High-contrast edges and markings for low vision.
Lightweight materials that still support full weight.
Aesthetics Belong in the Spec
Products only get used when people want them in the room. BÄSINGEN keeps the Scandinavian look: light woods, soft whites, simple forms. When an accessible product matches the room’s style, it stops being medical equipment and becomes furniture.
Bathroom Accessibility: Where Most Homes Fall Short
The bathroom concentrates more hazards than any other room. Wet surfaces, hard fixtures, narrow clearances, and reach that requires balance all combine in a small footprint. Common fixes are well established: grab bars mounted 33 to 36 inches above the floor, clear floor space of 30 by 48 inches at fixtures, a 60-inch turning circle, non-slip flooring, and handheld showerheads.Ergonomic thinking scales from the bathroom to the jobsite. Contractors who run compactors appreciate the same attention to operator strain that drives advances such as Sakai’s pneumatic and oscillatory compaction technology, and homeowners feel the same principle in a faucet that opens with a forearm or a grip that fits a weakened hand.
Grab Bars and Clearance
Grab bars belong in every shower and beside every toilet, and they must be anchored to structure, not just drywall. Blocking installed during framing makes the difference between a bar that holds 300 pounds and one that pulls out of the wall. Clearance planning matters just as much: a wheelchair needs a 60-inch circle to turn and 30 by 48 inches of clear space to approach a fixture.
Shower and Flooring Options
Curbless showers remove the step that causes most bathroom falls. They require proper sloping and waterproofing, which makes them a contractor job rather than a weekend project. Non-slip flooring with a textured or matte finish beats glossy tile in wet conditions, and a handheld showerhead lets a seated user wash independently.Lighting and contrast round out the safety picture. A 300-lumen task light at the vanity and a night light along the path to the bathroom prevent the disorientation that causes nighttime falls. High-contrast edges on steps and thresholds help people with low vision read the floor, and they cost nothing at the design stage.
Upgrade
Typical cost range
Who it helps
Priority
Grab bars, anchored to blocking
$30 to $300 installed
Everyone, all ages
High
Lever handles on faucets and doors
$20 to $150
People with limited grip
High
Handheld showerhead
$25 to $200
Seated users, caregivers
High
Non-slip flooring
$3 to $8 per square foot
Everyone, especially older adults
Medium
Curbless shower
$3,000 to $12,000
Wheelchair users, fall risk
Medium
Doorway widening to 32 inches
$300 to $2,000
Wheelchair users
Medium
Task lighting on switches
$50 to $400
Low vision
Lower
What Product Launches Tell You About Demand
Manufacturers respond to measurable demand. Tracking the top construction equipment launches of 2014 showed which categories buyers prioritized in real time, and accessible home products are following the same curve as the population ages and more households plan for it. When a major retailer launches an accessible line, it signals that the category has crossed from niche to mainstream.
Reading Demand Signals
Watch three signals: mainstream retailers adding accessible lines, building codes adopting universal design language, and contractors reporting more accessibility requests in estimates. Each one widens the market and improves the price-to-feature ratio for buyers.
Budgeting and Phasing an Accessibility Project
Pricing on new products follows a familiar curve: early launches carry a premium, and competition brings value down, the same pattern visible in high-performance cordless tool launches and their pricing. A phased plan lets you capture that value instead of paying the early-adopter premium on everything at once.
Set Priorities Before You Spend
Safety first: grab bars, non-slip flooring, and lighting upgrades prevent the injuries that accessibility projects exist to avoid.
Daily use: lever handles, handheld showerheads, and reachable storage reduce strain on every interaction.
Structural: curbless showers, doorway widening, and stair lifts, scheduled when the budget allows and permits are obtained.
A Phased Plan That Works
Phasing also helps with financing and contractor scheduling. Structural work is disruptive, so pair it with other remodeling while the space is open. Small product swaps can happen any weekend.Get three contractor quotes for structural work and ask each one how they handle waterproofing, blocking, and permit inspection. The lowest bid is rarely the cheapest once rework is counted, and accessibility details such as slope and clear floor space are exactly the kind of work that gets skipped without an inspection.
Evaluating Accessible Products Before You Buy
Use the same testing discipline you would apply to any new fixture, whether you are evaluating track saws, hammer drills, and routers or a bath stool: check the specs against your situation, handle the product, and run it through the motions you will actually use.
Test It Like You Will Use It
Test with one hand, because many users will be carrying something or bracing themselves.
Test in wet conditions if the product lives in a bathroom.
Measure the installed footprint against your clearances.
Lift the product; weight matters for daily handling.
Verify certifications such as ANSI A117.1 or ADA references in the spec sheet.
Read the return policy before assembly, and keep packaging until installation is complete.
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