Livable Later

Practical home changes for staying safely at home

Kitchen and daily living

Laundry, closets, and the shelves you can reach

A laundry basket on the stairs and a closet rod overhead are the same problem. Bring daily tasks into reach and onto one floor.

Livable Later editorial team · Updated November 1, 2026 · About 6 minutes

Laundry and storage are how houses keep people on ladders and stairs. The basket is carried in both hands. The winter coat is on a rod you reach by standing on the closet frame. The CDC's rule is blunt: keep things you use often on lower shelves, about waist high, and if you must use a step stool, use one with a bar to hold. Never use a chair as a step stool. The National Institute on Aging repeats the waist-high storage point and asks whether trash and recycling are piling up because the bins are in the wrong place. Apply those lines to the closet, the utility sink, and the basement stair and you have this project.

Get the laundry off the stairs

If the washer is in the basement and the person who does the laundry is unsteady on stairs, the machine is in the wrong room. Moving a washer and dryer to the living floor is plumbing and electrical work: a drain, a water supply, a vent, a dryer vent to the outside, and a proper circuit. It is not a hose dropped through a hole. An unvented dryer dumped into a closet is a moisture and fire problem. Have a plumber and an electrician tell you whether the floor you want can take the machines before you buy new ones.

Where the machines stay downstairs, change the carry. A bag over one shoulder leaves a hand for the rail, which is the rule implied by every CDC stair line about keeping a hand available and keeping objects off the steps. A dual-bag backpack or a soft duffel beats a wide basket that blocks the view of the treads. Better: wash less often in larger, lighter loads, and have someone else do the stair. Pride is not a handrail.

Front-loading machines save the bend if they are raised on a drawer pedestal that is made for them and bolted down. A pedestal that was not designed for the machine, or a stack of blocks, walks across the floor in a spin cycle and tips. Read the manufacturer's pedestal list. Raising a machine also raises the door. A person seated in a wheelchair may then find the door too high. The ADA laundry benchmark in covered housing puts operable parts within reach, with the same 15-to-48-inch idea as other controls. In a house, sit in the chair you use and see if the door, the detergent, and the knob land in reach. Side-by-side machines on the floor are a long bend. Stacked machines put the dryer controls overhead. Choose for the person who runs them, not for the catalog silhouette.

A utility sink at standing height with a lever faucet keeps hand-washing off the kitchen floor, where drips become slips. Do not carry a soaking wet rug down the basement stair. Wash it in a way that does not require that trip, or do not own that rug. The rug guide is the more direct fix.

Closets you do not climb

Lower the rod that holds everyday clothes. A second rod at a height the person can use while standing flat-footed, roughly chest to waist for many people, takes the tiptoe out of dressing. ADA section 308's unobstructed reach, 15 to 48 inches, is the benchmark for shelves in accessible units. Use it to place the shelves that hold daily medicine organizers, shoes, and the bag that goes to the door. Seasonal items can go high if a family member brings them down twice a year. The person who lives in the house should not be the one on the stool for a Tuesday shirt.

Closet doors that do not open fully block the reach you just created. Use the door clear-width test. Bifold doors that jump the track become a leaning hazard. Repair the track or replace the doors with ones that stay up. A walk-in closet needs a light you can switch from outside the door, and a clear floor. Storage on the closet floor is a trip in a small room. The bedroom guide puts shoes in a basket for this reason.

A step stool, if it still exists, has a handle, lockable steps, and a home that is not the walking path. The CDC describes that stool and forbids the chair substitute. Many households should not have a stool at all. If reaching is the reason it is there, lower the shelf and give the stool away. That is a successful project.

Things on the floor and things overhead

Trash, recycling, and the cat litter should live where they are used, on the same floor, in bins the person can open without bending to the bottom of a barrel if bending is the problem. A smaller bin emptied more often beats a huge bin that must be dragged down stairs. The NIA question about trash piling up is sometimes a logistics question.

Overhead garage storage, attic hatches, and pulldown stairs are how handy people get hurt after retirement. If the person should not be on a ladder, the holiday bins come down once, with help, and live in a closet on the living floor for the season. A pulldown stair that is shaky gets repaired or locked. It is a stair, and the rail and tread rules apply, including not carrying a box in both hands.

Tools used often — the flashlight, the batteries, the step-free reacher for things that drop — belong in one drawer at waist height, not in a basement toolbox. A reacher is a stick with a claw. It is useful for a dropped pill bottle and useless as a reason to keep heavy dishes overhead. Do not store heavy things high and plan to fish them down. Move them.

Paying for the plumbing version

Moving laundry is a real remodel. The dated JCHS ranges in the cost guide will not price your vent stack. Get two quotes that include the dryer vent path, because a long duct with too many elbows fails the dryer manufacturer's rules and becomes a lint fire risk. If the quotes are wild, keep the machines where they are and change who carries the basket. That is a legitimate outcome of pricing the work, not a defeat. USDA repair loans and some Medicaid waiver programs sometimes treat a safer laundry location differently. Read the USDA and waiver pages and ask the agency. Do not assume a washer move qualifies.

Reach first, plumbing second

  • List every weekly task that uses the stairs or a stool: laundry, trash, coats, medicines, hobby supplies.
  • Move daily versions of those items to waist-to-shoulder height on the living floor.
  • Lower the everyday closet rod. Repair closet doors so they open fully and stay on the track.
  • Change the laundry carry so one hand can hold the rail, or move the machines with a real vent and a real drain.
  • If a pedestal is used, use the one the washer maker specifies, and test the door height from a seated position.
  • Retire the chair-as-ladder. Keep a stool with a bar only if lowering the shelf is impossible.
  • Put the bins where the waste is made.

Kitchens get the glory in remodeling. Closets and laundry prevent more ordinary falls per dollar when the only change is where the heavy thing sits. Do this list before you redo the kitchen counters. The same reach rule is waiting there.

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