What Are Living In Place Home Modifications

What Are Living In Place Home Modifications?

Here’s a thought: When your lifestyle changes, your house should be ready. When you have children in the house, your house should address their needs. Your house should also empower any resident with a disability. Furthermore, if older relatives come to live with you, your house should help you care for them. Once you become empty nesters, your house should accommodate old company and new hobbies. Finally, when you reach the later stages of life, your house should let you live in comfort and safety. Sound like too much to ask of your house? Well, you might want to raise your expectations because your house can handle all of it with living in place home modifications. What are living in place home modifications? We’ll define this term, supply examples, and delineate the advantages so you can see how important they are.

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What Are Living In Place Home Modifications?

So, what are living in place home modifications? Living in place home modifications are upgrades to your home that create attractive, easily accessible living spaces.

These modifications adhere to the principles of universal design, which focus on producing inclusive environments that anyone can use regardless of their age or physical ability. With living in place home modifications, you can ensure that you and everyone you love enjoys living in your house as long as they stay there.

Why Are Living In Place Upgrades Necessary?

If you currently live with a multi-generational family (or plan to do so in the future), then you have people of all ages, sizes, and abilities using your home. But unfortunately, the components of your house may not oblige everyone dwelling there. Some parts of your house may only work well for people of a certain height or age. Furthermore, individuals with a permanent or temporary disability that inhibits their independent living, mobility, cognition, hearing, vision, or self-care may not be able to operate particular features in your house.

For instance, a child may not be able to reach a light switch, an older person may struggle to go up or down the stairs, and a person in a wheelchair may not be able to pass through all of the doorways. Therefore, your home requires renovations that consider all of its occupants and commit to meeting their needs.

With living in place home modifications, your house can be warm and welcoming to everyone. Specifically, these modifications can prevent anyone from struggling to accomplish their daily activities within your home. For these reasons, home remodeling companies like BenchMark Home Services provide living in place home modifications.

Who Makes Living In Place Home Modifications?

Many houses in America call for living in place home modifications in order to function well for their diverse residents. But not many people are authorized to administer living in place remodeling services. In fact, you should only trust a Certified Living In Place Professional (CLIPP) with the project of applying living in place home modifications to your house.

A CLIPP has the appropriate knowledge and training to discern which living in place home modifications will be right for you. CLIPPs acquire their certification from the Living In Place Institute. And with their credentials, they can align with occupational therapists, architects, and designers in order to develop beautiful, bespoke, and hospitable domains for everyone.

Clearly, your house would be in the best hands when you trusted a CLIPP to manage your living in place home modifications.

What Are Examples of Home Modifications for Safety?

While some living in place home modifications involve every room in the house, others pertain to just one type of room. The following lists present examples of both universal and room-specific living in place home modifications.

Universal Living In Place Home Modifications

  • Make sure the house has an accessible kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, and laundry room on the first floor
  • Expand the house with room additions as necessary in order to carve out enough space for the use of wheelchairs or walkers
  • Lay slip-resistant flooring
  • Widen doorways or install pocket doors
  • Install more lighting and equip them with motion sensors to impact the balance of natural and artificial light
  • Replace current windows or put in new ones for security, efficiency, and light
  • Put D-handles, lever-style handles, or loop handles on all cabinets, doors, and appliances
  • Place handrails and grab-bars strategically around the home
  • Carpet stairways and install handrails on the walls flanking the stairs
  • Trade toggle-style light switches for rocker-style light switches
  • Put peepholes and deadbolts on exterior doors

Kitchen Living In Place Home Modifications

  • Floorplan:
    • Alter the kitchen floorplan to generate additional room for maneuverability
    • Arrange the oven, refrigerator, and sink as close to each other as possible
    • Add a seated workspace
  • Floors:
    • Lay slip-resistant flooring like linoleum, wood, or vinyl
    • Make stone or tile slip-resistant with texture
    • Aid depth perception by painting the walls a different color than the floors and adding colored lines to floor transitions
    • Install slopes or remove door curbs
  • Countertops:
    • Outfit the kitchen with durable, low maintenance countertops
    • Round out the corners and edges of the countertops and outline them with color-coded edges
    • Create multi-level countertops or lower the countertops
    • Position grab-bars on the countertops
    • Prevent the surface of the countertops from being too shiny
  • Cabinets:
    • Make sure the cabinets are easy to see by rendering them in bright, matte colors
    • Add a pullout step under the lower cabinets, lower the upper cabinets by 3”, and/or give each cabinet a pull-down shelf
    • Put Lazy Susan cabinets wherever you can
    • Equip lower cabinets with pullout shelves
  • Appliances:
    • Put an easily accessible thermostat or window unit in the kitchen for temperature regulation
    • Keep appliances easy to reach with an accessible microwave, an accessible dishwasher, and an elevated wall oven
    • Bring in a side-by-side refrigerator-freezer unit with slide-out shelving and long door handles
    • Put a pullout counter under the oven
    • Switch the range out with a cooktop with front-mounted controls
  • Sink:
    • Get a motorized sink if necessary
    • Make sure the sink is no deeper than 6 inches
    • Outfit the sink with a hands-free or flexible faucet with lever handles
    • Add a water filter, soap dispensary, and anti-scald device to the sink
  • Lighting:
    • Install recessed, track, task, or under-cabinet lighting above countertops, islands, and walkways

Bathroom Living In Place Home Modifications

  • Floorplan:
    • Enlarge the bathroom to allow for walker or wheelchair clearance
    • Expand the bathroom door or put in a pocket door
  • Flooring:
    • Install non-slip flooring such as laminate or textured tile
    • Outline floor transitions and counter edges with colored lines and paint the walls a different color than the floor to promote depth perception
  • Shower and/or Bathtub:
    • Bring in a walk-in tub
    • Add a no-threshold shower
    • Equip the tub and shower with shelving and seating
    • Position grab-bars in and around the shower and tub
    • Replace showerheads with adjustable and removable shower heads
  • Toilet:
    • Bring in a bidet
    • Trade your standard toilet for a comfort height toilet
    • Place handrails and grab-bars around the toilet
  • Vanity:
    • Allow for under-sink clearance
    • Lower the vanity sink and countertop
    • Put pull-out shelves in the vanity as well as pull-down shelves in the cabinets and closets
    • Hang an angled or pivot mirror above the sink
    • Place D-handles or loop handles on all cabinets and lever-handles on all doors
  • Lighting:
    • Install motion sensor lights, side mirror lights, and recessed lighting for added convenience

Living Room Living In Place Home Modifications

  • Floorplan:
    • Enlarge the living area to produce plenty of space for canes, crutches, walkers, or wheelchairs to move around in
  • Flooring:
    • Change out the current flooring for something trip or slip-resistant like hardwood floors or low pile carpet
  • Storage:
    • Acquire a custom entertainment center for concealing and organizing electronics
    • Put in built-ins that successfully clear up floor space, attractively eliminate clutter, and safely hold important objects
  • Entertainment:
    • Mount a big screen TV or a projector and screen
  • Support:
    • Place grab-bars and handrails where needed
  • Doors:
    • Furnish all cabinets with D handles or loop handles and all doors with lever-style handles
  • Lighting:
    • Put up motorized or manual window blinds
    • Position plenty of artificial lighting overhead such as pendant lighting, recessed lighting, display lighting, and chandeliers
    • Raise the height of the sockets around the room and throughout the rest of the house
  • Temperature:
    • Install a masonry fireplace or fireplace insert
    • Upgrade your HVAC system if needed

Bedroom Living In Place Modifications

  • Accessibility:
    • Put in a stairlift if a ground floor master suite is not desirable or possible
  • Floorplan:
    • Build out the bedroom to supply space for a walker or wheelchair to maneuver in
    • Alter the bedroom floorplan to grant room for medical equipment
    • Widen all bedroom doorways and put in pocket doors where possible
  • Flooring:
    • Make the floors safer by laying laminate, carpet, cork, or hardwood
  • Walls:
    • Mount a digital clock or TV on the wall
    • Assist depth perception by painting the walls a different color than the furniture and floors and placing colored lines on floor transitions
  • Windows:
    • Hang automated or motorized blinds or window coverings
  • Storage:
    • Craft a well-lit, spacious walk-in closet and stock it with custom storage such as built-ins with low shelves to make clothes easier to reach and to prevent messes
    • Commission the construction of built-ins with customized features such as nightstands, a headboard, shelving, or even a bed frame to keep necessities within reach
  • Furniture:
    • Attach tall furnishings like bookshelves or wardrobes to the walls as necessary
    • Affix bed rails to the bed
  • Lighting:
    • Achieve the ideal balance and amounts of artificial and natural light with ambient and task lighting installations

Laundry Room Living In Place Home Modifications

  • Floorplan:
    • Broaden the laundry room to allow for a walker or wheelchair mobility
  • Appliances:
    • Install the proper outlets and wiring for your appliances
    • Install a large basin sink at the right height with clearance underneath and a lever-handle or motion sensor faucet
    • Position a front-loading washer and dryer on pedestals to eliminate lifting clothes or bending over from the task of doing the laundry
  • Storage:
    • Install built-ins or hang cabinets with bins, roll-out shelves, or Lazy Susans above and around your washer and dryer
  • Flooring:
    • Put down appropriate slip-resistant flooring like rubber, vinyl, bamboo, carpet, or cork
  • Climate:
    • Set the room up with a ceiling fan
  • Workspaces:
    • Position an ironing board that folds down from the wall near the dryer
    • Arrange a large, sturdy counter space with a soft material on top
    • Equip the outlet where you’ll plug the iron in with a timed light kit so the iron will automatically turn off after a certain period of time

What Are the Benefits of Making Living In Place Home Modifications?

1. Increased Safety

No matter who visits or lives in your home, you want them to feel cared for. Little ones, older people, disabled or injured individuals, etc.: no one’s health should be jeopardized by the state of your house. But unfortunately, the designs of most homes don’t regard the varying abilities of different people groups. As a result, your house may not be a good place for them to be due to the fact that using it puts them at risk.

What’s more, houses of a certain age or with distinct characteristics can also be problematic. For instance, depending on when or how your house was built, it may contain:

  • Lead pipes or old plumbing
  • Chipping paint or lead paint
  • Cracks or holes in the walls
  • Weak or broken flooring
  • Pest infestations
  • Asbestos
  • Mold

Exposure to these elements can be harmful or even deadly, so you should handle them as soon as possible. And thankfully, living in place home modifications afford the opportunity to correct any issues of poor design or perilous substances in your house with home repairs.

2. Additional Accessibility

Accessibility supports everyone. With a more accessible house, people of all sizes, ages, and abilities can thrive with ease. Children who are too short to reach things, injured people who are temporarily inhibited, the seniors whose bodies are becoming less robust, and impaired people who need assistance completing daily activities would all benefit from a highly accessible house. And living in place home modifications produce such a house.

Living in place home modifications maximize accessibility by following the guidance of universal design. Universal design prioritizes living spaces that are:

  • Equitable
  • Flexible
  • Intuitive
  • Communicative
  • Forgiving
  • Low effort
  • Appropriately sized and spaced

With these qualities, your home will satisfy the preferences of all kinds of people, present the information people need to easily and effectively accomplish their tasks, and promote the independence everyone desires. With living in place home modifications, your home can be more accessible and, consequently, more universally appealing.

3. Preserved Convenience

Having to move to a new house just because your lifestyle changes is usually very frustrating and stressful. If you’ve already gone through a lot of changes, adding another major adjustment to your life can be pretty unpleasant. Furthermore, not being able to extend shelter and service to a loved one due to the conditions of your house is equally disheartening. Because minimizing the emotional and physical distress of the unexpected is essential to sustaining the well-being of all involved, living in place home modifications can be a godsend.

The entire purpose of living in place home modifications is enabling you to remain in your current house. And if you want that house to be your forever home, living in place home modifications can make that happen. You won’t have to worry about how well you can tend to your friends and family members because living in place home modifications prepare your house for anything. So, especially when you work with a home remodeling company led by a CLIPP, you can lock down your contentment and convenience with living in place home modifications.

4. Enhanced Comfort

We sincerely hope that you’re perfectly content with your home at this time. If you are totally happy with the way your home looks and performs, then you’re very fortunate. However, if you’re not, then you can appreciate the fact that living in place home modifications permit you to increase the comfort of your home for both your present and future lifestyles.

Living in place home modifications serve to establish your home as a satisfactory setting for anyone who visits or lives there in the coming months or years. To help your home fulfill the role of an all-inclusive environment, living in place home modifications predict the needs that your home’s residents will experience down the road. However, living in place home modifications also allow your home to do a better job pleasing you and your loved ones right now. When you have professional home remodelers updating your home, you can request that they complete the tweaks that will simplify your life straightaway. These revisions may include the size of your cabinets, the shape of your built-ins, the hinges on your doors, a light fixture, the transitions between your flooring, and more. Whatever would amplify your happiness with your house as soon as possible, living in place home modifications encompass.

5. More Personalization

Did you build your home or remodel it at some point? If so, then the aesthetics of your home probably appease you. But if you bought your home from someone else and have never remodeled before, then your house might display design details that you don’t love. If you find yourself in that position, then you should know that living in place home modifications can get you out of it. Specifically, they can give you the chance to add your personal touch to the parts of your home don’t prefer with home improvements.

Case in point, you can choose the new door handles or new faucets. You can approve of the transition colors between the walls and the flooring. If your circumstances call for new tiles in the bathroom, countertops in the kitchen, and floors in the living room, you can voice your input for all of it so that your home becomes a better expression of your style. When your house looks exactly like you want it to, you can relish living in your house for more longer.

6. Raised Property Value

As you know, we make plans in life, and then life decides whether or not we can carry out those plans. So, while you may make living in place home modifications to what you hope will be your forever home, you might not be able to live there as long as you would like. Whether good or bad, the unexpected may force you to sell your house and find a new one at some point. This possibility may cause you to question whether living in place home modifications are worth making in the first place, but the good news is these modifications are advantageous while you’re living in your house and attractive to potential buyers when you’re selling your house.

Because living in place home modifications offer an improved quality of life for anyone no matter their size, age, or abilities, a house boasting such modifications can entice a wider range of interested parties. Again, very few houses in America incorporate designs that respect physical distinctions among humans, so your house will really stand out on the market. Consequently, you may be able to raise your asking price and elevate your ROI.

How Can You Accomplish Living In Place Remodeling?

Now that you know what living in place home modifications are, you can arrange to make them in your own home. To begin, you can check your house for the modifications listed above to ascertain which modifications your home may require.

Even if your house has never had living in place home modifications, you may have areas of your house that already adhere to universal design. Therefore, you wouldn’t not have to make living in place home modifications in that area. On the other hand, you may not realize how some parts of your house fail to follow the principles of universal design. These parts of your house pose a threat to your thriving future, so you should consult with a home remodeling company led by a CAPS to pinpoint exactly which modifications are right for you.

Where can you find such a home remodeling company? In BenchMark Home Services. Because our owner Anne Capozzi of Capozzi Design Build is a CAPS, we can determine and deliver any and all living in place home modifications your house lacks. With our elegant and effective living in place home modifications, your home can assist your physical abilities and manifest your personal tastes for years to come.  

BenchMark Home Services is an extension of Capozzi Design Build, so each member of our home services team, including our expert carpenters, has over 15 years of experience. We also have a remarkable reputation for professionalism, kindness, and excellence in the industry.

Service Areas

Lastly, we’re headquartered in the greater Cleveland area. Therefore, our service areas include the following cities and their neighboring northeast Ohio communities:

  • Cleveland Heights
  • Boston Heights
  • Solon
  • Chagrin Falls
  • Pepper Pike
  • Macedonia
  • Moreland Hills
  • Peninsula
  • Gates Mills
  • Beachwood
  • Shaker Heights
  • Willoughby Hills
  • Aurora
  • Hunting Valley
  • Hudson
  • Twinsburg
  • University Heights

With the help of BenchMark Home Services, your dream home can be a safe and stylish place for you and everyone you love to live and gather in. So, contact us today to start your living in place home modifications!

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