As the leading edge of the baby boomer generation is now closing in on 80, many are at the point of needing home care in some form, be it retirement communities or planning to age in place. Baby Boomers are a massive demographic that has long driven lifestyle and housing trends given the sheer numbers of them, and so ‘age in place’ planning is an increasingly driving trend. So how do you maintain your independence in your senior years? Let’s look at the options.
How do you modify a home to be friendly to seniors?
Home renovations and modifications can either delay the need for seniors to transition to care homes, or avoid it altogether for the more determined (stubborn) or courageous. There are basically three options available – either prepare homes for selling in order to downsize, modify homes to extend the time seniors can spend in them independently, or modify spaces to allow for live-in care providers or multi-generational housing.
Which option is most preferred is primarily a matter of taste, but also of home size, available finances, and family dynamics. Multi-generational housing – the granny suite – is the one that makes the most sense for society since it increases housing density. Even if you opt for minimal changes without adding a new unit, many of the useful modifications and features will be the same.
Building a ground floor granny suite
Young families often have a hard time buying a first house, let alone helping pay for parents to be in full time care homes. In that situation, it would be ideal to invest in your own property to create additional space for a granny suite.
That can either be a young family making room for a parent, or the parent’s home being modified to welcome a young family and give them a head start towards homeownership.
The perks include:
- Close family companionship for parents.
- Monthly expenditures go towards investing in home improvements and property value instead of the very high rates in a seniors’ care home.
- Greater living space and higher home value, possible rental units or first apartments for kids in the future.
- Free babysitters and daycare providers! Grandparents always love time with grandkids, kids can benefit from their wisdom, and parents can use a night out.
- On a grander scale, as mentioned above, building granny suites improves urban density and protects the remaining green spaces.
So how do you create a space that allows for the right mix of privacy and shared living? First figure how well you (and more importantly your spouse) get along with your aging parents for that is a big factor in determining how much space and separation is needed.
The ideal granny suite would be on the main floor, have its own bathroom, bedroom, living area and even kitchenette. Even better, would be its own door to the exterior along with an entrance into the main house.
Here we want to explore the options for safe and functional home spaces for seniors that will accommodate an age-in-place lifestyle.
Increased and brighter lighting
Visibility: One of the most critical aspects of aging in place is proper lighting. Poor visibility can lead to falls, which are a leading cause of injury for seniors. To enhance safety, be sure to have bright, energy-efficient LED lighting in hallways, staircases, and entryways. Indirect lighting is easier on aging eyes; save the direct lights for the reading chairs.
Motion-activated lighting is great for nighttime navigation as well as ease and energy efficiency. And be sure to provide bright localized lighting for tasks in Kitchens, bathrooms and any workspaces.
Using LED light bulbs will keep your power consumption low while improving lighting, and it helps to install compatible dimmer switches since older eyes often don’t like glare.
A note about pot lights – This is a very trendy and dramatic lighting design and offer a nice dramatic look, but the directional lighting does not offer the same even coverage; just pointing that out as a consideration when shopping for fixtures.
Non-slip hazard-free flooring
When choosing flooring materials for granny suites look for slip-resistant surfaces such as Marmoleum, cork tiles, or even rubber. Those three options offer better grip and also a small amount of cushioning compared to hardwood or tile floors. That may be a factor in whether a fall will mean a quick or a slow recovery. See our page on choosing durable healthy flooring here.
Mats for bathrooms and entrance ways should have rubberized backing to stay in place or be fixed with double-sided tape. Area rugs, loose mats and carpets are statistically a high-risk cause of falls for seniors. Speaking of fabrics; dressing gowns or other long clothing can be a tripping hazard; seniors lose height as the spine compresses and their clothes may need amendments.
If renos will involve resurfacing wooden floors, keep in mind that with finishes, the more glossy a floor is the more slippery it can be as well.
A simple trick to improve traction on stairs, is to sprinkle a minor amount of sand over the final coat. It will be effectively invisible but the grit will offer noticeably better traction. It's not just seniors who can take a stair tumble; any adult can as well as children doing stairs at high speeds. A more expensive option is to install fixed carpet. While providing better traction, it also makes a softer landing spot should a fall happen.
While we’re on the subject of flooring, see our pages on under floor heating and single story living on slab on grade foundations. They are ideal solutions for heating additions.
Handholds and grab bars
Make sure you have lots of hand holds for navigation and safety, particularly in bathrooms. As an element of ‘flexible home design’ for easier renovations, in Ecohome Demo Houses we install either plywood or other solid backing behind the drywall in bathrooms. Doing that allowed us to forgo hand holds now, but, as they are needed in the future they can be installed securely anywhere in the bathroom without need for wall modifications.
If not plywood, then 2x8 or 2x10 blocking between studs offers the same ease and solidity for installing hand holds, but the blocking limits where these safety bars can be located. So be sure to create some sort of map or ‘note to self’ of where they are.
Accessibility upgrades such as wider doors and ramps
To provide universal access for wheelchairs to pass, make door openings at least 36 inches wide. Handles for doors should be lever-style rather than knobs. Make sure interior door openings don’t have protruding curbs of any kind and for main home entrances, be sure to provide a small curb ramp so wheels and feet don’t get tripped up.
Even if wheel chairs and rolling walkers aren’t yet a mobility consideration you need to factor in, it’s much less expensive to allow for possible modifications when decks or porches are being built, in case it does become a necessity one day.
Beyond just wider doorways and handholds, see our complete guide to bathroom modifications to provide safe easy access for seniors and those with mobility issues.
Elevators and lifts
For multi-level homes, stairs can become a barrier to mobility. If you cannot provide a main floor bedroom for seniors, there are many options for lifts. That can be straight or curved stair lifts for existing staircases, vertical platforms that can lift wheel chairs, or even small residential elevators which will be popular with grandparents and probably lazy teenagers as well.
Wellness monitoring through smart technology
Smart home devices are becoming very popular in modern newly built homes as they offer convenience, energy efficiency and home security among other things. You can see our page on smart home upgrades here, but there are additional benefits for seniors, particularly those who live alone.
Smart sensors on water systems can tip off a caregiver to inactivity by sending a notice to a smart phone. Surely over the course of a day there should be at least one toilet flush or a glass of water poured, so in the event that there is no water used in a day you would know you need to do a wellness check.
For additional safety you can program voice-activated emergency call systems. Almost all of us have that on our phone already, so a simple solution for seniors with somewhat sketchy balance who live alone would be to have a cell phone on them at all times where they can say ‘Hey Siri, call so-and-so’, or 9-1-1.
Tiny houses and ADUs (Accessory Dwelling Units)
A nice alternative option to undergoing a home renovation would be a backyard tiny house, ADU or coach house. Providing you have the space to do it and you live in a city that promotes rental units for urban density such as Vancouver BC, laneway houses and ADUs provide safe living space for mobile seniors while maintaining independence.
What a treat it would be for a grandparent or a grandchild, to have a backyard tiny house on the same property. Particularly for kids if they feel a need to ‘run away from home’, no doubt the first stop would be Grandma’s house for a sympathetic ear and to stock up on cookies to start their new lives.
This is exactly the plan I have for my property (yes mother, in case you’re reading this, I’ll let you live in my backyard). In the future it can be a first apartment for my son, a guest space for visitors, or a rental property. Any way you slice it, a backyard tiny house or ADU is an investment that will pay off, be it as a rental property or higher selling price.
And now for my soap box two-cents:
Home upgrades like this provide quality of life for family members, young and old. Multi-generational housing in generations pasts wasn’t an option to consider, it was just what you did. At some point we adopted a societal structure where we put our aging parents in expensive rest homes, and put our kids in afterschool care. Why don’t they spend that time together?
Better in every way, would be that grandparents stay active and feel valuable by spending time with their grandchildren, and kids learn that there is life beyond devices. Or at least grandparents can get tutorials on phone use from 6-year-olds.
More people under one roof means less buildings encroaching on green space, more dense urban cores to make use of existing infrastructure and public transportation, and more money invested in our own families. Multi- generational living was just a given for untold thousands of years; hopefully that is a trend that will continue.
Now that you know more about home renovations helping seniors aging in place, find more pages about sustainable green home building techniques here :
Find more about green home building in the Ecohome Green Building Guide pages or to learn more about the benefits of a free Ecohome Network Membership, see here. |
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