Staying in your home as you age

In my 7th decade now, and having invested 38 years into our homestead, wife and I would like to continue to live here until we die. With that in mind, and our master bathroom getting some age on it (we built the house in 1985), we decided one of last year's projects would be to do a complete remodel of the room. We started gathering materials (tub, shower components, skylight, etc) last summer with the intent of getting on it in the fall when the weather turned cooler. Well, life got in the way of plans, and we put it off until this fall, starting on Labor day weekend.

It was a complete gut down to the studs:


Pulled the one window out, turned it into a temporary doorway and built a temporary deck on the outside to bring stuff in/out and give me a place to work without having to traipse thru the house with everything.


Cut a hole in the roof, framed it out, put in skylight


Skylight finished from inside

Cut out part of the floor, trimmed the floor joists down so the shower pan would end up level with the finished bath floor. I wanted a curbless shower that I could use a walker or wheelchair if it ever comes to that.


Shower pan, walls installed. I used the Schluter system, which is preformed, waterproof pan, and their wall board for the tile.



Also used the Schluter mat for the main floor with the in-floor heating cable set up.


Seemed like I cut tile for 2 weeks straight, but finally got all of it up. Finished shower with glass door:


Door from the bedroom into the bath. Built it out of red oak. Got a stain glass maker to built me a panel for the upper part. Wife like daffodils.


Put one of those walk-in tubs in one corner.....again trying to plan for age.


New window where the temporary doorway was:

 

Beautifully done Bro!

 

Nice work! I am living in my old famaily home that Dad bought back in 1964. Built in 1962, we are the first owners/tenants. Dad passed, then Mom. On her death, the property became mine and my sister's. I bought out her half, as she wanted to sell the place immediately, I did not. It's a far better property (three acres and a concrete block house with huge garage/shop). My property is a half acre of suburban H*!! with a doublewide.
So, with my health failing, I intend to remain here til I die.

 

Nice work Andy ,,, the Schluter is the way to go,, that's the way I'm doing all of my showers these days ,,, that's a beautiful door as well.

 

Beautifully done. The more you can get done and the earlier in the end process the better off. At 82 I am a little more along the road. At some point, things get difficult without a good support system in place. My sense of balance will no longer let me climb ladders and shoulder problems will not let me lift overhead. Things that I did 5 years ago, changing brakes in snow plow truck, painting eves 25 feet up, safely cutting 24 inch trees for firewood, etc are just not in the books. Hate to be beholding to anyone, but after taxes, insurance, food, medical costs, etc, and limited income due to only working part time, savings and social insecurity, I really can not afford to pay $40 on hour for general help and $100 an hour for plumber, electrician, etc. But the facts of life are that in this area they have to get that to feed their families and live. While kids say they will help, they have a lot of other things on their plates, like living 2,000 miles away or not having the knowledge to do things that need to be done. While friends do help out, they do not have the time or ability to drop everything and show up at 6 in the evening to fix a leak under the sink, a plumber gets $100 for a call out, wants to fix it right, and the existing pipes are 40 years old. Realistically it is a $1,000 job, new pipes, new faucet, new shut offs, re plumb and get system ready for new dish washer to replace failing 20 year old one. With social security check at about $1,600 for my share, not really in the cards, but if I do get down and do it, have to have help to get back up and pains for a day after.

Anything that you can do now to prepare for 5 or 10 years down the line, new bath room, new windows, new sinks or heating, will pay dividends that you can not even conceive of a few years down the road. Things you can do now in an hour will take a day and a lot of things will not be doable.

My life experience, with most of my friends dead or unable to do any more than I can, has indicated that the biggest elephant in the room is the manner of owning your home or property. If anything is left by the parents, after nursing home, medical costs, funeral costs, etc, the other members of the family, especially those living 1600 miles away who stopped sending Christmas cards 15 years ago, will want their "fair share" of everything now and at fair market price and in cash. Parents seem to expect kids to get along and the small matter of taking care of them for years, fixing up their place, spending money for minor repairs, etc, means nothing to those wanting their share of the estate and any attempt by the parents to reward you will be challenged in court and create bitter feelings. Been there, done that.

My mother and father in law were honest hard working people who saved all their lives and made do with what they had. Lived well, no real vices, and when they were in their 70's had a home paid for, $50,000 in the bank, and Medicare etc, including a long term care insurance policy. By the time they passed on, nursing home costs above the insurance, $50 a day when they bought the policy, $300 a day when they died, and other medical costs had taken over half of their assets. State said that they needed care beyond what we could give, and after making sure money was there, set up a nursing home bed, with threat of elder abuse and looting of elders assets if we did not go along with their plans. If you are going to protect your property assets, you have to set up some form of a trust now, law will requires it be done years before the system needs your money or it is attempting to steal assets from the government and medical system. You may think you own your property free and clear, but to the rest of the world, lawyers are the worst, it is just an asset to be exploited. Please make sure that if one member of the family does have major expenses, the other one in most cases, will not end up with nothing. My dad left my mother close to $300,000 when he died at 66, by the time she died at 86, the system had taken it all, assisted living, nursing home, medical costs, etc. That is the normal today, not the exception.

Don't mean to hijack thread, really liked your improvements, think you are doing a great job, but please make sure you do everything at all of you can do to legally be able to enjoy the full benefits of your hard work and savings 10 to 20 years down the road and not lose it as an "asset" to some establishment that needs the funds to maintain its existence..

 

I like the skylight, it will make the house seem more roomier, and will help reduce some of your lighting costs. You seem to be doing all of the things that will add to your ease and comfort as time goes on. You have also increased the value of your property.

 

Duane....you not only didn't hijack it, you put into words the whole point of it. Thank you for the shared story of your experience, which is exactly my line of thinking.

 

I ordered most of the components from a place online and they were actually fairly reasonable compared to the local big box stores.

 

Also have skylights, like them for the spacious feeling. FWIW, I put clear plexiglas panels in at ceiling height, provides a bit more draft prevention and a dead air space that justifies itself as minor insulation. They are removable if needed for cleaning.

 

I like skylights. You do lose some heat, but the trade for natural light I think is worth it.

I put one in over the stairwell when we built the house in 1985....it was one of those cheap plastic bubble type, nearly impossible to properly flash around, and which of course leaked around it, rotting the roof out within 10 years. THAT is when I learned to appreciate the design of Velux brand. Installed properly, they are as close to leak proof as you can get. One of those cases of "there is never time/money to do it right the first time, but there always is to do it over" kinda thing....

The plastic bubble over the stairwell, I replaced with a 30x50" unit that does open....though what we've found is we never open it, so the others we went with fixed models.


Upstairs, we have a bathroom kinda tucked in where the roof comes down. Headroom is limited, but as a second bath we really don't use, it was fine. The fixtures (tub/toilet/sink) were actually ones we brought from out first house. Building the first house (in town), I ran across a set of "put your sunglasses on GREEN" fixtures at the local lumber yard somebody had special ordered, then not taken...they were selling them for almost nothing....which was exactly my price range..ahahhaaa, so in our first house they went.

7 years later, we were selling the house to move here to the farm, and the only sticking point to the buyer was "those awful green fixtures" in the bath. No problem....I jerked it all out, remodeled the bath with their choice, over the course of about a week, and we sold the house. The green stuff actually sat up here in the open woods for about 6 years until I got ready to finish off that bath upstairs (hey...you can't hurt cast iron and porcelain), where I reinstalled them.

Couple years ago, the finish on the tub did finally start showing some rust coming thru, so I remodeled that bath....got a guy to come in and re-glaze the tub for couple hundred bucks(white this time)....looks like a brand new tub..... replaced the other stuff in white to match, AND put in a BIG (46x46) skylight in the roof/ceiling to give the little room some open feeling as well as light. Now it feels like you're up in a tree house while in the bathroom !

 

as always@TnAndy Beautiful work and brilliant thinking ahead.

We just remodeled my parents bath tto a walking shower with stablizing bars all around. Trying to keep my folks in their home as long as possible.

My Dad has dementia and when someone has dementia keeping them in familar surroundings is critical to keeping them mentally stable as long as possible. My Dad wouldnt survive in another location, the confusion of a move would be too much.

There are other consideration for aging in place other than just economics.

 

Now I will say that this is the kind of thread I like. It shows insight into preparing for the future, what factors / situations go into making the decisions and choices, causes members to articulate their thoughts into why they are doing the same.

So, for 2020 I'm going to say this is the best thread for the year. Thanks for this @TnAndy

 

Good job, dang!

 

If not the best, one of the most forward-thinking

Good show!

 

That all turned out lovely and I know you will appreciate it in the years to come. My SIL's mother moved into a townhome eh, about 10 years ago I think, and it was in the process of being built. She had some alterations to the plans that included making the hall and doorways wide enough to accommodate a walker or wheelchair, as well as getting rid of the bathtub in the en suite and having them put in a massive, roll in shower that has a large bench in it and the grab bar down one side. She's in her 80s now and still quite spry, but she too intends to live out her days there so it will be ready for her should she become less mobile in the coming years. Seeing what she did gave us a number of ideas of things to do to our house (namely the bathroom) to make things a bit more comfy as we get older, fatter, and creakier.

I am envious of your skylight. Around here hailstorms usually make short work of them.

 

Excellent workmanship as always TNAndy !!!