Are you one of the many Canadians hoping to stay in their forever home as long as possible? In the last decade, Canada has seen our population ageing faster than ever, with many homeowners choosing to make proactive changes to their homes to ensure they will be able to stay in the place they love for as many years as possible. Accessible and universal design has seen a sharp increase in demand for contractors across the nation, including right here in Alberta.
Intended to keep our homes safe and open for all, these kinds of renovations have plenty of benefits to offer in the long run, especially as we age. Below, Peak Improvements will explore some key facts about accessible design, including areas of the home that are important to focus on when renovating.
What is Accessible Design?
Have you ever stopped to truly look at your home and consider how easy it is to navigate? While you can likely navigate everything perfectly right now, it’s important to consider what elements could become a hindrance should you ever become injured, less mobile, or simply find yourself dealing with the challenges of old age like reduced vision and more. Accessible design aims to help identify and resolve such challenges, creating spaces that are easy for everyone to navigate, as well as intuitively designed around your needs.
Accessible and universal design are important for more than just senior home renovations, and, as the terms suggest, help to guarantee that anyone can feel at home in your space. For this reason, accessibility-oriented design is beneficial for everyone, including savvy investors who want to greatly increase their buyer net. As a general rule of thumb, whether you’re planning for yourself or future buyers, aim to start renovating early, far before such changes become necessary to facilitate comfortable living in the home.
Where Should You Focus?
Every home is unique, as are the needs presented by each owner. Whether you’re building for you or for resale value, it’s important to remember, as we indicated above, that age-in-place and accessibility renovations are often a process. Because these kinds of changes involve far more than just aesthetics, you may find yourself changing more, or less, than you originally anticipating. From changing flooring and light fixtures to adding chair lifts and more, each room should be looked at by a qualified team of experts who can give you a clear idea of what you’re working with and break any major changes into phases.
Common areas that often need work done include:
Bathrooms
As one of the most essential and frequently used rooms in the house, ensuring that your bathrooms are safe is a non-negotiable for the future. Slippery floors, poor lighting, inadequate bathing options and more can pose a significant risk to your well-being, and should all be addressed in order to make your home senior-friendly. Bathrooms are also a great starting point because, although they are quite detailed, they are more contained than other rooms and can sometimes be done with less overall disruption to your day-to-day life in the meantime.
From replacing slick floors to adding discreet grab bars in showers, replacing lighting and more, there are plenty of ways to make your bathroom more accessible!
Kitchens
Not unlike bathrooms, kitchens are a big part of our day to day and can pose multiple challenges if poorly designed. Opening up tight corners for better floor navigation, lowering cabinets, increasing lighting and more all go a long way to helping you stay safe and preventing dangerous accidents.
Master Bedroom
An accessible bedroom is a comfortable bedroom! Many homes have the master bedroom on the second floor which can pose a challenge without proper access solutions, and often the room themselves can have issues. Accessible friendly design will focus on lowering light switches or adding touchless lighting controls, cushioned flooring, and stability bars near the bed, as well as ensuring you can reach the room with ease regardless of where it is located.
Designing Your Perfect Home For the Future
With a little foresight, planning for tomorrow doesn’t have to feel like a hassle. The Peak Improvements team is pleased to work alongside our clients to create the perfect home for today, tomorrow, and well into the future. Contact us now to learn more!
