To what extent do you consider living in old age when building?

in advance: we are currently somewhat in the phase where we seriously question all previous plans. :) I hope this phase is normal.

At the moment, I am concerned with the aspect of to what extent one should take the situation in old age into account when planning the floor plan. With the floor plans we have favored so far, living in old age with possibly typical problems would not be easily possible.

So we are currently planning a shower bathroom on the ground floor, but it will be somewhere between 3.5-5 sqm, and a large, barrier-free shower would probably be just as impossible there as having enough space to enter the bathroom with a walker, etc. Basically, I have always considered a bedroom on the ground floor a sensible option with regard to later, but it seems to me that especially such "catalog floor plans" from building series do not really provide for a sufficiently large bedroom on the ground floor and a sufficiently large bathroom.

Now it is not as if we only became aware today that we might hopefully be 90 one day and perhaps no longer be able to climb the stairs. We simply did not necessarily see the question of living in the house in old age as a priority. Basically, we still derive a lot from the idea that we might hand over our single-family house to one of the children in 30 years or rent it out in order to move back to the city ourselves, etc.

But maybe we will see that very differently in 20 years. Maybe we will be extremely attached to this place, to this house, maybe we cannot imagine selling the parental home of our children, etc.

Then it would not be unwise after all to plan so that one could eventually live entirely on the ground floor, perhaps separate the upper part as a living unit and rent it out. But then, maybe one would have to plan things differently now...

What role has this aspect played for you?

How old are you all?

I definitely think it's worth considering!

You don't have to become disabled first; an accident, an illness, and life goes differently than you ever thought (I am sensitized to this, my father developed Parkinson's and now I know what it means when the body no longer wants to cooperate)

We don't have enough space to live only on the ground floor (well, good, it would work but it wouldn't be nice). For me, the solution: design the stairs now in such a way that a stairlift might be possible, barrier-free on both living levels (no door thresholds), shower also and big enough to possibly be accessible with a walker, as well as a seat in the shower etc.

This is really important to me.

Ypg, mid-30s.

Question about stair lift regarding construction and size of the stairs is a good point.

Hello Mizit,

we have not dealt intensively with this topic, but we have definitely thought about it. For example, our house is built modularly so that on one level (ground floor) we have enough rooms to live there in old age (kitchen, living room, bathroom with space for washing machine/dryer, bedroom) and designed so that we can separate the stairs from the rest of the living area. In other words, just a new door and that’s it.

The upper floor (2 children's rooms and a bathroom) is designed so that a flat door can be installed here with little effort and one children's room is positioned so that water and sewage for a kitchenette can be laid from the bathroom with little effort. There is also space for a washing machine/dryer in the bathroom. This way, we can live on one level in old age and rent out the "unnecessary" rooms, for example to students.

However, we did not install extra-wide doors or plan specifically for barrier-free access. Although basically everything would be accessible with a wheelchair.

On the ground floor, everything will be barrier-free including the front door and terrace door. Turning circles for wheelchair and rollator are taken into account. My father has difficulty walking, a very good friend has MS and on good days she can walk, on bad days she needs a wheelchair, a friend had a stroke. After years he no longer needs a barrier-free environment, but he still uses grab bars near the toilet and is happy about every threshold that is missing. All doors on the ground floor and upper floor will be wider, the bedroom planned spaciously so that there is room for a walker and nursing service. Bathroom with level-access shower etc. Stairs designed so that a stairlift can be installed. Whether it makes sense, hopefully we will not have to find out too soon.