Home modifications can help seniors age in place

By Samantha Foster samantha.foster@cjonline.com

Two decades ago, many aging seniors expected to move into retirement homes. Now, builders say, more people are realizing that with a few modifications, they can stay in their homes longer.

It’s a concept that Mike Pressgrove said changed his whole way of thinking the first time he encountered it.

Pressgrove, president of PDQ Construction, completed a large project for a retired doctor and his wife who lived near Potwin. It was an older house, and all of the bedrooms were on the second floor. The couple were in their early 80s, and they hired Pressgrove’s company to build an addition in the back of the house with a bedroom, master bathroom, office and back porch, all on the first floor.

After finishing the project, Pressgrove recalled, he asked the doctor why the couple decided to invest so much in their home late in life. He replied that the cost for him and his wife to go to an assisted living facility would ultimately cost much more. The new addition enabled them to stay in their home for several more years, Pressgrove said.

“The idea to them wasn’t necessarily the money — it was the familiarity, and liking where you live and liking your neighbors and liking your neighborhood, and they just didn’t want to go anywhere,” he said. “And that was their solution.”

That build prompted Pressgrove to take an aging-in-place course offered by the National Association of Home Builders. It involved experiencing for himself — in a wheelchair, with special glasses and wearing things on his hands to mimic the effects of arthritis — the kind of problems seniors may encounter in their homes.

The course is meant “to help remodelers and builders be able to understand some of the problems and be able to come up with answers and solutions to be able to keep people in their homes,” said Pressgrove, a certified aging-inplace specialist.

Mark Boling, owner and president of Mark Boling Construction, said homeowners want the ability to move around freely in their homes.

One of the biggest problems, he said, is being able to enter the house with zero entry — no steps.

Indoor stairs can present a bigger problem. While Pressgrove said stairlifts are popular and easy to install, Boling said his company will modify stairs so there is less of a rise. A 1- or 1.5-inch difference in height can make a lot of difference, Boling said.

Many people are choosing engineered wood flooring, Boling said. It is easy to clean, and for people in wheelchairs or with walkers, it is easier to move around on than carpet.

For Pressgrove’s clients, bathrooms present the main concerns. Walk-in showers with grab bars allow easier access and avoid the fall risk tied to tubs, he said.

Houses built in the 1970s often have laundry facilities in the basement or tucked into a corner near the entrance from the garage, Boling said. That makes them less accessible for some aging homeowners.

“More and more people are trying to make it where the laundry room is right off the master bedroom area,” he said. “That way they can ease access (from) the laundry to the master closet.”

Aging-in-place projects are an increasingly larger part of Pressgrove’s business, he said, adding it is a good investment.

Mike Pressgrove, of PDQ Construction, says a lift like this one onto an extended platform can make a garage door zero-entry, removing the need to build a ramp.

[2015 FILE PHOTO/THE CAPITAL-JOURNAL]

“Some of the people who come to me have talked to their financial advisers and those people are starting to tell them, ‘Have you thought about trying to stay there and save money for when you really need to go?’" Pressgrove said. “And sometimes they can do minor modifications to their bathrooms, their kitchens, their entryways, just things like that to be able to keep them there, to make life easier so they don’t feel like they’ve got to go somewhere.”