In reply to mtn :
BTW...
Go ahead and do the WHOLE thing FULLY handicapped accessible.
Trust me. You will thank me later.
In reply to mtn :
BTW...
Go ahead and do the WHOLE thing FULLY handicapped accessible.
Trust me. You will thank me later.
SVreX said:In reply to mtn :
BTW...
Go ahead and do the WHOLE thing FULLY handicapped accessible.
Trust me. You will thank me later.
We'll see about that - that would be ideal, and tbh not much more if any more expensive for something like this. Just make it so that you can build a ramp, give enough room to get a wheelchair around everything. Thinking about it, there is really no way to make it any other way, unless we did apartment above the garage type of situation, which my parents don't want anyway - I think they spend more time up in the vacation home than they do in their "full time" house, and I think that is at least 50% due to the fact that their "full time" house is a 2 story.
The house itself is already fully handicapped accessible (well, other than it needing a ramp, but that is easily built, only 1-2 stairs into the house). I insisted upon that when my parents were doing their renovations. Being a ranch house, there wasn't much to be done other than handrails in the hallways and bathrooms.
My MIL has MS, and while she'll likely never be there, I insisted my parents do these things preemptively just in case - aside from that, I assume it gets them another 5-10 years of use out of the place.
John Welsh said:Your needed ease of entry sort of negates a camper.
I think the She-shed idea might be best. Make a new bath that is very "accessible".
I'm with Svrx and have been since page one, he just expressed the idea more clearly.
Here are some examples of She-sheds...
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-man-cave-has-a-new-neighborthe-she-shed-1485885279
Pricing from $10-$20k
https://www.mysheds.com/outdoor-retreats/she-sheds
I remembered that your mom had some challenges (but I wasn't sure exacexactly what) so I recommend it be handicap accesaccessible
Is "she-shed" just code for "playhouse"?
In reply to Keith Tanner :
I would say a Man Cave doesn't have many windows vs a She-Shed which does; Here is the one I built for my wife, has a porch and columns, still not done actually. ;)
SVreX said:In reply to mtn :
BTW...
Go ahead and do the WHOLE thing FULLY handicapped accessible.
Trust me. You will thank me later.
He’s absolutely right, you may not need the full safety rails, ramps, accessibility thing now or even want them but measure, take pictures of where to mount the rails etc. use 36 inch wide doors into bathrooms and plenty of space around things.
Forego high counters and use great big windows to allow plenty of natural light. You simply can’t have too many electrical outlets especially near the beds. As people age they need more and more electrical apparatus to keep their independence.
Lift chairs and beds are part of life for seniors but require space and electric. Stairs should be avoided but a chair lift provides access and comes at a modest cost if the stairs are wide enough with night lighting top and bottom plus electrical access. Put in the box and just cover with a blanking cover.
Go visit hospitals and assisted living places for ideas and inspiration. As I said you don’t have to install everything right away but good planning makes things possible.
Decent assisted living is expensive. $3500 a month is fairly normal if you don’t want a warehouse of seniors waiting to die atmosphere. With a staff of recent immigrants making minimum wage and not caring about their patients.
Even at that price there are plenty of places that are dying warehouses. Miserable places, for loved ones. Far better to a small fraction of that where daily check ins and immediate access is the norm.
It’s not foolish to have an extra space used currently as a craft room or something but will provide medical staffing a place to sleep should the need arise.
In reply to mtn :
You are underestimating it slightly.
The main thing is a little more square footage. For example, a decent basic bath can be done in 35 SF. Minimum for a handicapped bath is more like 45 SF. If you don’t build it large enough to have a wheelchair turn, you’re not gonna fix it later.
Hallways should be more like 48” (not 36”)
Doors should be larger (although NOT necessarily 36”). Depends on the configuration, but 32” clear space when open is the minimum. In a small space, 36” is too big (it becomes hard to swing the door closed behind you in a chair).
An accessible shower is a big deal. A “roll-in” shower is nice, but expensive. A large shower with good grab bars and a hand-held shower head is sufficient (bonus- it feels quite luxurious to people without a wheelchair). Consider a curtain instead of a shower door- there is no shower door that makes it easy for a 2nd person if assistance is ever needed.
ADA door thresholds, higher electric outlets, lower light switches, a counter area in the bath or kitchen with knee space under... there is a reasonable list that is very simple now, but very difficult later.
Ramps are easy to add. Bigger baths are not.
Old thread, revived by spammer. Move along, nothing new to see here.
She shed?
Go look at your bed. If there are pillows on it that aren't used for sleeping, your whole house is a she-shed.
In reply to SVreX :
I've a friend who decided his 315 sq ft house needed more space last year. But since the wood would cost him almost $17,000 he decided to save up for it rather than going in debt.
In the meantime he met and married a lady with 2 children so now he really needs the addition. But the cost of the same amount of wood came to over $33,000.
Since I've been out of the pricing of construction supplies for 20 + years now
How much has ICF's and concrete gone up? How about SIPs? Anything new for structural material that looks promising?
In reply to frenchyd :
ALL building materials have risen sharply.
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