A Few Of My Favorite Things - Part 5: Door Pulls

Going in and out of doors is an important part of life that everyone does many times a day.  You probably don't give it any thought, but if you rely on a wheelchair for your transportation, you know every door can be a challenge.

When negotiating a door, you almost always have to operate the door with one hand while you maneuver the wheelchair with the other. Driving a manual wheelchair with one hand is challenging.  Doing it while leaning out of your chair to reach the door handle with the other hand will make you question how badly you really need to leave the room.  Add in any additional complications like a spring-loaded door closer, a bumpy threshold, or a fragile item on your lap that needs to go with you, and the profanity will start to flow.

For a lot of the doors out in the world, there is nothing I can do.  They suck and that's that.  But for the doors in my apartment that I use every single day, there are options.

I got this idea from something I saw in a video by this guy.  He has done lots of really helpful YouTube videos about how he manages his paralysis; if you're recently paralyzed, you should check him out.  I was watching one of his videos, and I noticed something in the background.  He had a handle mounted to a door near the hinge that he could use to pull the door closed behind him.

One of my biggest door-related annoyances in my apartment is that whenever I leave, I have to go out, turn completely around, roll back across the threshold, grab the door handle with one hand while backing myself across the bumpy threshold with the other, trying not to hit the wheelchair with the door as I do it.  It's awkward and difficult and annoying.  If I'm taking something out with me, I have to take it off my lap since it will probably fall off my lap while I'm closing the door.

When I saw it in the video, I immediately recognized how nice it would be to have a handle on the door that I could reach from outside without rolling back in.  The guy in the video (I don't know his name) used what looked like a drawer pull for his handle, but I know he owns his house so he probably just drilled mounting holes in the door to attach the handle.  I rent an apartment, so that's not really an option for me.  Fortunately, I'm a problem solver.

 I bought a drawer pull that mounts using #6 screws inserted from behind, like this one.  The screws that came with it wouldn't work for my purposes, so I had to buy some flat head machine screws that would fit, like these.  Then I got some 1/8" x 1" aluminum bar stock to mount the handle to.  Before my injury, I could have done this myself in my garage, but I had to get a friend to do it for me.  He cut the bar about 2 inches longer than the handle.  He drilled two mounting holes in the aluminum, and countersunk them so the screw heads would sit flush.  He cleaned up the rough edges, and assembled the whole thing together.

Looks like this

Now I had a handle mounted to a plate that was perfectly flat on the back.  I use a product called Command Hooks all over my apartment to attach things to walls with adhesive stickers that are strong, but removable.  I borrowed 4 of the small command strips to mount the handle to the door.

The finished product

I put one on the front door, and one on the door to my balcony.  Now when I go out, I just have to turn slightly, grab the handle and pull.  It works ridiculously well, and when I move out of this apartment, I'll just pull the tabs on the command strips, and it will come right off.  At least that's the theory.

The one on the balcony door

What it looks like on the back

It seems like a little thing, but it really makes my life a lot better.  I smile every time I use it.