Aging In Place? Here’s What You Should Do To Make Your Home Ready

There is indeed no place like home, so we truly understand if you want to spend your twilight years in the home that you’ve built with the ones that you love. 

But aging brings with it a lot of physical changes. You might start to feel that your joints are getting weaker and your vision is getting more and more blurry. There is a need to tweak your home a bit to accommodate the changes that you are experiencing. We’ll discuss in this article the little changes that you should not fail to implement.  

​Add grab bars in bathrooms

​Orthopedic issues are some of the most common complaints that older people have. Even the healthiest of seniors will notice that their bones get weaker and moving around becomes a chore.

The bathroom is a place that you should really modify if you want to safely age in place. Because there will be water, there is a very good chance that floors there will get slippery. Younger people won’t have problems holding themselves up. But older ones need support, and this is precisely what grab bars are for. If they are new to you, these fixtures are installed on walls so that you can easily hold on to them for support as you move around the bathroom.

​Get rid of some furniture items

​A home looks full and attractive when it is fully furnished and well-decorated. However, having a lot of items inside the house means greater demand for cleaning and maintaining. While exercise is good for seniors like you, cleaning and other similar activities that require you to bend and crouch for sustained periods might be too much, especially if you already have back and knee problems. To minimize the need for home cleaning, you might want to consider sticking with the basics when it comes to furniture. If a sofa and a chair is all that you need, then a sofa and chair should be the only pieces that you have.

Change the floor plan in accordance with your activities

A home should be laid out in such a way that it ergonomically supports the routine activities of the people living in it. If you are spending too much energy getting to places around the house, it’s a sign that there is a need to do some home modifications for seniors, at least as far as the floor plan is concerned. Study your behavior and list the areas in the house that you frequent; these places should be kept free from obstructions.

Keep cords in check

Electric cords that are just left lying around are hazardous because people might trip over them, damaging not only the appliance but also the health of the persons involved. Hence, wires should always be kept out of the way. In doing so, there really is no need for fancy cord organizers. You can just coil long cords, tie them using an ordinary string, and neatly keep them in a place away from spaces where you or your guests usually walk.