Lever locksets are a great feature for your home, especially when accessibility is an issue. Lever locksets are easy to install, especially on pre-hung doors. The first piece to install is the latch set. Once in a place, the handles simply fit in with a couple of the screws. For someone with arthritis, a disability, or even just an armload of laundry, these are a great option because they are easier to use than typical doorknobs.

Every year, tornadoes, hurricanes, and other severe windstorms rip through hundreds of towns and cities across the United States, injuring and killing people and causing millions of dollars in property damage. You can protect your family from injury caused by the high winds and flying debris of a windstorm by constructing or installing a safe room in your home. A safe room is different from the other rooms in your home because it has been specially designed and tested to withstand wind speeds of up to 250 miles per hour and the impact of a 15 pound 2 by 4 flying at a speed of 100 miles per hour. Typically, the safe room should be located in a central, interior, ground-floor area of the home for additional protection as well as accessibility. The basement of a home can also be used as a location for a safe room. A safe room can be incorporated into the construction of a new home, or it can be retrofitted into an existing home. The safe room can function year-round as a usable area, such as a bathroom, closet or utility room. Safe rooms can be constructed out of reinforced concrete, reinforced concrete masonry or combinations of wood frame and steel sheathing or concrete masonry infill. Safe rooms can also be manufactured, assembled and installed on site. Here are some things to consider when constructing or installing a safe room: Safe rooms must be structurally isolated from the main structure of your home. Safe rooms must be securely anchored to the foundation. Safe rooms installed in or over a crawl space must have a separate foundation. Safe rooms must have adequate ventilation. All components of safe rooms, including walls, ceilings, and door assemblies, must be designed and tested to resist the specified wind forces and prevent perforation by windborne debris.

Bob takes a tour with the architect for the Roxbury project, Fernando Domenech, to understand the difference between "adaptability" and "accessibility" when it comes to designing homes with wheelchairs in mind.

Karen Brooks Hopkins, president of the Brooklyn Academy of Music, gives Bob a peek at the restoration of one of its facilities. BAM, which held its first performance in 1861, is the oldest performing arts center in country. The original location on Montague Street in Brooklyn presented New York with some of the popular performers of the time, Ellen Terry, Edwin Booth, Tomas Salvini, and Fritz Kreisler. After a fire in 1903, the center was moved to its current location at the edge of Brooklyn's business district in the fashionable neighborhood of Fort Greene. After World War II the neighborhood and Facility went into decline. In the past thirty years the area has gone through gentrification and the surrounding community has been revitalized. BAM is now the largest presenter of contemporary international dance, theatre, and opera in the United States. The entire weatherworn facade is being renovated, including the terracotta cherubs and the colorful cornices. The architectural firm managing the BAM renovation is Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates. Hugh Hardy is leading the team, using modern technology and materials to restore the terracotta ornamentation, and the reconstruction of the parapet and cornice, which was removed for safety reasons almost 50 years ago. Work being performed also includes replacing the cracked brickwork and lintels, creating handicap accessibility, a partial roof replacement, refurbishment of stained-glass windows, cleaning of the facade, and the addition of an undulating, 130 foot-long glass entrance canopy.

Bob meets with Ryley and installs a Schlage interior lever lockset for the accessibility house, because lever locks are easier for differently abled folks to operate.

Here are some ideas for designing your home to be accessible to someone with a disability. In the bathroom, tilting mirrors, medicine cabinets, and sturdy grab bars allow easy access for a wheelchair user. Among other items to consider: thermostats with larger, easier to read numbers and lever handles on doors for simpler operation.

As America's favorite home improvement expert Bob Vila has cleared the way for modern Do-It-Yourself and Do-it-For-Me television. In this clip Bob Vila takes the viewer through a montage of some of his favorite projects during his fifteen seasons of Home Again. From the first Home Again restoration project in Marstons Mills, Mass. he comes full circle to the ground up modern modular masterpiece home in the Berkshire Hills.

Angela Polo and Ken Micklow are on hand to show Bob the sustainable plantings selected for the Punta Gorda home. Polo shows Bob the firebushes selected for the water side of the garden because they are dwarf varieties that will not block the water views but will attract butterflies. Micklow shows Bob how the vegetable garden is built with interlocking anchor blocks and erosion cloth to prevent the rich humus mixture from seeping out of the raised bed. The soil is a mix of compost, peat moss, bark, and dolomite. This sunny spot will house tomatoes, peppers, onions, and herbs that will thrive in the heat and sun. Craig Harmer from Gardens Alive brings natural plant and animal products that are suited to specific plants to enhance the soil and promote growth. These soil mixes are completely unprocessed meals and protein blends developed for each plant. The pesticide applications are natural pyrethrins and canola oils that target specific pests. Even snails are eradicated with Escar-Go! Composting is also encouraged through the Florida Yards and Neighborhoods program. Polo adds that composting clippings, trimmings, and kitchen vegetable waste will build soil enhancers and microbes to enrich the gardens and plantings.

In this episode, Bob goes on a neighborhood tour of Naples, Florida. We see the highlife both by car and by boat as Bob selects a "cracker" cottage to remodel.

Bob visits a rooming house near Boston in Roxbury, Massachusetts. A new concept in housing is being developed here, a grass-roots development corporation called Nuestra Comunidad (�Our Community� in English) is converting a antique abandoned buildings to single-room-occupancy or SRO housing for low-income and homeless people. The buildings are laid out with common living rooms, kitchens and bathrooms. By doing this they convert a building that would normally house six apartments to nineteen rental units.