Living with Someone Who is Blind or Visually Impaired: How to Organize Your Cupboards and Closets

Living with someone who is blind or visually impaired is not as challenging as most people think it might be, but there are definitely some things you will want to consider should this become an issue in your life. This article will focus on the organization of the cupboards and closets in your home, one of the most important things you can do upon embarking on a life with someone who has low or no vision to make both your lives more convenient and comfortable, and to ensure that you are creating a home together that will enhance the independence of the person you are living with.

The first thing to keep in mind when you organize cupboards and clostes is the need for separate space in your storage spaces for your visually impaired friend or family member to take as his or her own. This is most important in the pantry and the refrigerator. Even if you are quite certain that you or someone else will be the primary food preparer in the household, it is imperative that someone who can not locate what he or she is looking for visually knows just where to find it and is confident that nothing unexpected will be found there, confusing them in their search. This may be as small as one side of a shelf in the pantry or cupboard and a drawer in the refrigerator, or they may want to utilize a larger area. This will depend on their interest in food preparation. But, whether they are going to store a bottle of soda and a bag of chips or the all fixings for any number of elaborate meals, it is important that they have the space they need and that it is all their own. No matter how often food is prepared in your house, no one wants to feel as if they are living at someone else's mercy with no independent access to food when and where they want it. Work with your co-habitant and determine together just how much space is needed in each kitchen area and identify the most convenient places for those spaces to be located.

This same rule applies when you organize bedroom. Sharing a drawer or closet is challenging for someone who is visually impaired. Most people with low vision will have learned basic laundry and housekeeping skills, which they will have then adapted to work best for them. Most visually impaired people have little idiosyncrasies in this area- how they fold their clothes, how they like to arrange their drawers, the manner in which they order their closet. This is very hard to keep straight if someone else's socks and sweaters are thrown into the mix, so investing in an extra armoire and dresser or two might be in order if you don't have enough closet space to provide a separated section for them to use as their own.

When looking to organize the other closets and storage spaces in your home, work with your friend or family member to find out just what they have to store and where the best places for their belongings will be. Generally, they will have a history of storing certain things in certain places, and you should be able to work together to find the best, most mutually convenient places for their things.

Another helpful trick to make your home more comfortable and convenient is to have a space set aside in a place that is easily accessible, perhaps in a basket hanging from the wall near the front door, for things that your house mate will need to be able to locate often and quickly. Examples of these sorts of things include their white cane, keys, sunglasses, wallet, et cetera. For most of us, if our keys are thrown casually on a table it is apparent to us as soon as we enter the room that that is where they are. For someone who is visually impaired, sometimes an item that is located a mere six inches from the spot where they thought they had left is becomes hopelessly lost. Having a spot where all necessary things go is crucial for many legally blind people.

So, let's move on to the common items in the house, and how to keep them organized and identifiable to your house mate. You will learn to separate your household items into two categories: things that are useful to your blind friend or family member, and things that are not. For instance, the telephone book is unlikely to be of much use to them, as the print is to small for almost all legally blind people to read and visually impaired people are entitled to free, unlimited directory assistance calls. However, the location of the telephone is important. Is it somewhere easy to access, on a secure surface, but not where the receiver can be easily knocked off its cradle?

In the kitchen, you'll want to have your utensils organized in a manner that is safe for someone who will be searching with their hands for the right fork or spoon. Keep each piece of your silverware in its appropriate section in the silverware caddy. For your larger utensils and cooking forks, spoons, and gadgets, avoid the "junk drawer" method of storing these items, which you might not use as often. I recommend a counter top holder, like a ceramic vase or a medium sized canister, so that the utensils can be investigated without concern abour the business end of one of them causing injury.

Organizing your dishes in a simple, easy to retrieve manner is another trick that will make the visually impaired person you live with feel more comfortable and independent in the home. I strongly urge you to find enough shelf space to set your dishes in piles of like sizes, dinner plates in one pile, salad plates in another, et cetera. It is tempting to save space and stack the salad plates on top of the dinner plates and the saucers on top of the salad plates, and so on, but this "piling up" method will present a dangerous and potentially costly challenge. The separated stacks method is better even than placing the dishes vertically in racks, as dishes resting vertically can get dinged by another dish being pulled out from behind, even by the most cautious of people.

Pots and pans should have a specific place to live, and should return to the same place every time they're put away. I find a pot rack to be particularly helpful, as the hooks are easy to identify and they keep the pots and pans nicely out of the way.

But what about the things that are communal, but not so easily identified? How will a visually impaired person know whether they're grabbing a can of Campbell's Tomato Soup or Corned Beef Hash? How about the wrap drawer- is that foil or plastic wrap? Well, this is where a braille labeler becomes your best friend.

The braille labeler is a device that looks identical to the old Dymo labelers, and uses the same old Dymo tape. The difference is that instead of punching print letters into the tape, the braille labeler embosses braille. The guide on top is marked in both braille and print, so either you or your house mate can use it. You can purchase one in any store that sells items specifically designed for the visually impaired (your friend will undoubtedly know where the nearest such store is, but you can also check your local Yellow Pages). I recommend keeping one in the kitchen and anywhere else you tend to put away things that you all will be sharing.

You have a couple of choices on how to use the braille labeler. Most households where there is a visually impaired person living use a combination of marking the shelf area where specific items are always stored (for instance, a row of cans of tuna, commonly used canned vegetables, et cetera) and marking the specific items (specific cans of soup, uncommonly used veggies, new items to the household). When marking things like foil and plastic wrap, again you can mark the boxes, or if you have them in a dispenser, you can mark the dispenser, which will save you the effort of marking each box as you purchase it. In your refrigerator, you can mark things like cans of different types of soda, or you can mark a line on a shelf where each brand will live. Things that last longer, like cooking sauces and condiments, you may find easier to just label the individual containers.

There are other tricks that can be utilized to make things easier for every one. Some people separate things into different containers, with certain shapes signifying particular items. Different textured containers can also be utilized. Coffee beans in the bag they were bought in might represent regular coffee, while beans transferred into a zip lock bag might signify decaf, or flavored coffee. There are all kinds of little things that you and your house mate will come up with.

Another thing to consider, and a very important one for the safety and comfort of your home and all who live in it, is the minimalization of clutter in your common areas. Keeping the dish rack and sink clear, not leaving boxes or other items in travel spaces, hanging up coats and sweaters instead of throwing them down onto pieces of furniture, and the like will not only be appreciated by the visually impaired person living in your home, but it will decrease the chances of injury to your house mate and damage to your belongings.

This guide may seem like a lot of work, and a large load of things to think about and alter in your home, but you will be amazed at how quickly it all becomes second nature. Soon you'll be in a groove and will barely have to think about what you're doing. Be sure to involve the person you are organizing your home for in the process, both at the upstart, and in the day to day maintenance, and both of you will feel more secure and less interdependent, allowing you to enjoy your time together and let go of excessive and unnecessary work and stress.