Many millwright companies can replicate(or carry in stock) pieces of molding from days past. That means you can widen the doorways and still keep the trim looking identical. The more difficult(and expensive) problem is replicating the doors. That is a bit more challenging in some cases.

I would be concerned about load bearing walls.

It would be unusual to find doorways more narrow than 30" in an old house. The standard recommended width for walker access is 32". Widening a doorway by 2" should have no effect at all on the load bearing capacity of a wall. Unless widening requires moving electrical or plumbing, this is a very doable project and probably would not be required for every door in a house. A skilled carpenter can very likely reuse the original doors as well by adding wood strips to the hinge side the latch side or both. The doors won't look exactly the same, but done carefully the changes will not be apparent to the casual onlooker. I certainly would not skip houses you clearly like because of the door widths. They can be widened fairly easily.

Thank you! I had them widened here in Dallas in my 70's ranch, but didn't pay attention to how it was being done. My walker is one of the rolling ones with brakes, so it may be wider, but I know there are also some hinges on the market that allow a door to move out a bit more. So if the widening is too much, I may be able to use those to get another 1/2 inch or so of clearance.

lyricfox: The easiest way to widen a door opening is to replace the jack studs (the ones which fit between the bottom plate and the header) with either metal brackets or a combination of the brackets and thinner wood. Even with modern 2x4's which are 1.5 inches thick, you would now have a potential opening of 33". (The original 30" opening plus the 3" gained by replacing the jack studs) In older houses, you may have studs that are actually 2x4". Now you have a potential opening of 34". I doubt, however, that any reasonably new walker would need an opening greater than 32". 32" is also the standard opening for wheelchairs as defined by Americans with Disabilities codes and others. Where HandyMac's suggestion becomes really important is in the width of hallways. These need to be a minimum of 36" wide in order for wheelchairs to be able to turn into doorways. In all likelihood, most older houses would have halls this wide anyway, but I would avoid a house in which they are more narrow. Widening a hallway is not impossible, but it would be much more complex than widening a doorway.

Thank you all! This is the sort of stuff I'll be sending with my husband when he goes house hunting for us. Some of the halls and doorways look very narrow, and I don't want to get trapped into that situation.

A millwright is the person who installs industrial machinery. It originally was the trade that had the knowledge to build grain mills, and could fabricate the wooden wheels, gears,etc. It's a very interesting history.

An architectural millworks is the place that makes and sells doors and trim.

You don't dare substitute a bracket for a jack stud in a bearing wall unless you can double the king stud. You still need double studs to safely carry the header even if the load transfer is via steel hardware. They are doubled not to look nice but to be stronger since they are taking double the load.

In my area, most of the smaller homes built prior to the 1930s had some narrow doorways. One of our smaller houses has a 24 inch bathroom door. In addition, the smallest houses often had such tiny kitchens and bathrooms that there isn't sufficient space for use even if the doorways are widened. Larger homes typically didn't have such small spaces regardless of the time they were built. Don't be afraid to look at older homes as some of them are very easy to navigate

I have seen the offset hinges installed and they appear to be a great option to gain an extra inch in a doorway with minimal effort and expense.

It would be much easier, and more affordable, to find a modern house with doors/hallways already wide, and THEN, if you want - replace cheap chintzy trim & doors with something nicer. Otherwise - not only are you doing the structural alterations but then having to mess around with altering trim, getting new doors, patching wood floors etc. Otherwise as others have said 32-36 in wide doors are not uncommon in older houses - pretty typical of middle-upper class houses

Find a house that accommodates you without such changes. You are talking many thousands of dollars in remodeling cost and new doors, to say nothing of structural complications.

Thanks everyone. I'm keeping the older houses in the mix because I do love them, and we're setting aside a goodly amount for any remodeling we need to do. If I'm really lucky, the only doorways that will need adjusting are the bathrooms, but if it turns out to be every room in the house, I know we'll skip that one.

What do you mean by "older houses"? What are considered to be older houses in my area usually have wider doors than new houses. My house was built in 1891 and all swinging doors are 32" including all of the bathroom doors. The front door is 42" wide.

A hospital hinge allows access to the full width of the frame opening when open to 90 degrees. All doors should allow access to the full width of the frame opening when open to 180 degrees.

My father at 90 was 6-5 and 240 lbs. I searched for and ordered the largest wheeled walker I could find which was 24" wide and had a seat.

Modern motorized wheelchairs require much less space than a manual wheelchair.

JDS: If what we end up looking at and eventually buying is set up like your house, we'll be golden. How wide are your hallways? Main stairway? I'm noticing in some houses the staircases are narrow, though that tends to be in house from the 50s and 60s. Old house had the gorgeous ones that I drool over and my husband just shakes his head at. :)