Roman offers a helping hand

Leading UK shower designer and manufacturer, Roman, have provided the TV show DIY SOS with a wetroom facility to help a young disabled boy with his independence.  The project was coordinated and supplied by a top Roman retailer TW Thomas in Swansea.

The show, which aired in December 2014, showed a single mother with two sons, one of which is disabled and their home was completely unsuitable for her disabled son, Jack. Jack is 14 years old and suffers from a very rare condition of muscular dystrophy, which only affects one in million people. Jack has had 19 operations in his short life.

The family home was hampering his recovery as he was forced to sleep in the lounge as he couldn’t get upstairs to sleep in his own bedroom. He also couldn’t go to the toilet by himself or wash himself, so his mother had to help him. Jack felt like he was a burden especially in the middle of the night when he had to call his mother to wake her up when he needed help to go to the toilet.

Due to Jack’s bed and special chair being in the lounge there wasn’t much space for the family to socialise and for them to have friends around. His older brother was spending more time at his friend’s house and less time with his brother as there wasn’t enough space for them all in the lounge.

Having helped out a number of times on DIY SOS, Roman was very keen to get involved and offered product for the new ensuite bathroom for Jack.

The designers plan was to create a new bedroom downstairs for Jack with an ensuite wetroom so he could regain his independence. Roman provided their Roman Shield Wetroom System to be installed straight to floor. When installing straight to floor, your floor and walls must be waterproof (tanked). So they used the Roman Shield Wetroom System to tank the space, which presents an all in one solution. The Roman Shield Wetroom System includes everything you need to tank a room, including complete wetroom kits to make the process easy. The installation of the wetroom now means that Jack can easily access the shower independently and doesn’t have to rely on his mother to wash him. It also frees up the living room space for him to enjoy socialising with his brother and provides them all with a lot more space.

David Osborne, Managing Director of Roman, commented: “We are always very happy to help programmes such as DIY SOS. We were so pleased that we could help Jack to regain his independence back by making his bathroom much more accessible. Jack’s mother said that their new home had changed their lives completely and knowing that we were involved in that is overwhelming.”

All Images © Roman offers a helping hand 2014