As you age and become elderly, you naturally lose your ability to independently do many things. You won't be able to move around the house as easily as you used to when you were younger, and therefore it is important to keep this in mind when you are building a home you intend to grow old in. Here is a look at a couple of home design tips that can help you put up a home that is customised to meet your requirements when you become elderly.
Build outwards, not upwards
Opting to build a storeyed house means you will need to integrate stairways in the design of the home. While staircases are designed to help people easily move up and down different floors of a building, they can be a real safety hazard for the elderly, even if they are equipped with handrails on both sides to provide support. Due to deteriorating vision perhaps, an elderly individual can easily miss a step on the stairway and end up falling and getting seriously hurt. The best way to eliminate this safety risk is to not build stairways in the first place. If you have a sizeable piece of land to build on, it is best to build outwards, so you can create all the living space you need without necessarily building stairways to facilitate easy and convenient movement from one floor to another.
Build broader corridors
A significant number of the elderly population often need to use walkers or wheelchairs to help them around, and you can never rule out the possibility that you might also need these movement aids. Make sure you build wider hallways to ensure unobstructed movement around the house. It wouldn't be convenient for someone else coming from the opposite direction to retract in their movement just because the hallway is not wide enough for them and your walker or wheelchair to pass.
Install floor-mounted storage cabinetry
When you get old, you will need most things placed in a convenient location for easy access when you need to use something. Wall-mounted storage cabinets help save valuable floor space, but if you are to take accessibility by the elderly into consideration, it will be better to install the storage cabinets on the floors instead of the walls. With floor-fitted cabinetry, elderly people can easily get whatever they want without calling in someone else to get it for them from the high walls.
Your custom home builder can help you highlight any other features you will need in the home to make sure it is truly customised to your needs when you become elderly.
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