Bending down to pick up shoes or reaching up for a shirt to wear can be painful when you have arthritis. Here are some tips for making your closet easier to manage.
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Living with arthritis can often mean the ordinary things become more difficult. Turning a doorknob or trying to reach for something up high.
And one place those difficulties are felt most is in the closet. Reaching and bending – these things are hard when pain and stiffness get in the way.
I have some tips for making your closet easier to manage.
What I like about this closet is that it has plenty of shelves, but look at where they start at waist level and then go up. Therefore, avoiding the bending over, digging through your things to try to find something.
If you don’t have shelves in your closet, or your shelves are too high, you might want to consider an option like this. This is a hanging shelf unit they’re really easy to install, they go right over the hanger rod right here and they give you plenty of accessible flat storage.
For closets that already have shelves, these clear bins are very useful because you can see what is inside – it helps to know which box to reach for and open. They come in all sizes. And if you have seasonal storage needs that require more space, clear clothing bags are also a good option.
One of the things I like about this closet is that the single rod isn’t too high.
You can see what I mean, it’s right about eye level not too difficult to reach and hang things there. If I have arthritis it wont be too painful for me to get to. Now, on this side you have a high rod and a low rod – use that to your advantage. Put the things you wear more rarely at the top, and the things that you wear more commonly can go down on the bottom. Easy to access.
It’s not a bad idea to have a chair in your closet. Sitting while choosing your days wardrobe can mean relief from the pain that comes with arthritis.
If you’ve got a door thats set up like the one I have here you might want to consider changing out your handle. A lever, like this one, is not only a lot easier to operate, its sometimes a lot less painful than trying to turn a round knob.
It’s easy to leave all your things on the closet floor and sort of rummage through them when you need to find something. But when you’re dealing with arthritis anything that’s on the floor can become a trip hazard.
Take shoes for instance. It’s great to put your shoes in a clear plastic container like this one for two reasons one, they’re easier to find and the other is your closet will be a lot safer if you have arthritis.
Now that you have your organization taken care of, it’s important that you see everything.
Thats where lighting comes into play. This closet has a great feature: it’s a light that actually goes off when you shut the door and comes on when you open the door.
This is a relatively easy project to install but I do recommend you hire an electrician to help you out just in case you have a little bit of trouble standing on a ladder.
But a quick fix would be a little device like this. This would pretty much adhere to anything inside this closet thats hard enough to hold a light. And you just turn it on where you need extra light, just don’t forget when you leave the closet to turn it off.
With tips for a healthier home, I’m Jay Baker.