From Inaccessible to Exactly Right: A Bathroom Transformation

A bathroom that reads as simply inconvenient to most people reads as a daily negotiation with dignity for others. The inaccessible bathroom was not just an old room that needed work. It was a space that made an already difficult situation harder, every single morning.

The tub. The tiles. The narrowness. Caitlin did not need anyone to tell her what was wrong. She already knew. She had been navigating it for years.

The bathroom was inaccessible, with no accommodation for a wheelchair. The tub was too high, and the floor tiles were coming loose. Meeting her child’s most basic needs—bathing, using the toilet—required planning, lifting, and effort that should never have been necessary. What should have been simple moments of care had become daily challenges, making both of their lives far harder than they needed to be.

Caitlin was not expecting to be asked what she wanted. She had been preparing for something functional: accessible, wheelchair-compatible, something that would work without anything extra being expected of the family.

What she received instead was a spread of tile selections, laid out and left there for her to consider. Someone from the Ten Key team stepped back. “Pick what you want,” they said. That instruction – so simple, so unusual – is where this story really turns.

The waterproof tile Caitlin chose herself now runs floor to wall through the finished accessible bathroom. It is practical. It is also considered. Both of those things are true at once, and that is exactly the point.

Then came the renderings. Before a single wall had been touched, before a tile had been lifted or a tub disconnected, Caitlin received a rendering of what the accessible bathroom was going to look like. A barrier-free entry. Waterproof tile from floor to wall. A space that made sense for a wheelchair. Seeing the accessible design laid out, complete and considered, before the work had even begun — she wanted to cry. Not because something was wrong. Because something, at last, was right. Bathroom renderings are a tool for contractors. For Caitlin, it was the first time the transformation felt real.

Her expectations had been modest: accessible, waterproof, something she could push a wheelchair into. That was enough. What she received was a bathroom with carefully curated tile, a thoughtful layout, and everything she needs to add ease to her everyday life. 

An inaccessible bathroom is not just an inconvenience, it’s a daily challenge in maintaining autonomy. Making it accessible and making it beautiful are not two separate achievements. In this bathroom, in this story, they’re the same one. The transformation the Dobbs family now lives in is proof that accessibility upgrades can be, at once, entirely practical and entirely lovely – and that the two things go hand in hand.