We've been collecting occasional ideas about a 'retirement house'. Mostly, its been me, salivating over thoughts of the perfect house, even while I know that when it is built, there would be things that we didn't even consider, and should have. As when we had the kitchen addition here built, and I said I wanted substantial window sills, so what we got were sills about three inches deep -- only I meant six or seven inches, because I wanted to put plants on them. Definitely, a problem of the idle rich, but its a microcosm of what could happen when you go to build the perfect house and didn't nail down every detail.
I recall reading with some amazement that when Bill Gates had had his mansion built, he spent something on the order of forty five million dollars on it == and it still had to have spaces left in the conduits and such for the technologies and concepts that hadn't been invented when the house was designed. An article in Fine Homebuilding, years ago, spoke of Skywalker Ranch, with an awesome central building, that was later found to be inadequate for the evolving needs of the occupants. I'll take it, George! Even our house has wiring running through the walls because we didn't know about the coming usefulness of wireless connections for the PC and stereo.
And then there's the van that I have been seeing lately as I come down the hill toward my home. I come to a stop at a T intersection, and I sit there for a few seconds, just looking at it. Its owned by a local handy man doing work on a house, and on the side of the van, it says 'Don't Move...Improve!' Perhaps thats been merging with the thought of 'there is no such thing as a perfect house', too, along with the current cost of houses and land, which startles and dismays me. Whatever the source, a new thought has occurred to me. Perhaps, instead of sinking money into a new house, we ought to consider making substantial renovations to this house.
After all, think about it. Why exactly would we want to move from this house? Primarily, steps. We live in a bilevel, with two bedrooms and the den and garage downstairs, and the other bedrooms and all, upstairs. We expect that as we age there will come a time when we do not want to climb the stairs routinely. I watch my mother doing it, and it can wipe her out.
So what if we didn't have to do it routinely?
What if we put in an elevator?
5 comments:
What is it about deleted comments that makes me wonder what was there before? Like the story I know I told about the open house at my college, and the debate over the graffiti in the mens room....
That sounds like a phenomenal undertaking, J. Just reading it, I'm impressed.
I'm not sure we'll do it. Its a huge, huge amount of money, and its a hell of a gamble. We're both cautious people, and this is scarier than anything we've ever done.
From a very simple standpoint, its a good decision -- we assume that a replacement house would cost about $50,000 more than we could get for this house (argh), and that closing costs, brokers fees, and whatnot, plus moving costs, would be another $20,000. So if we spent in that range and got a house we could stay in forever, one that we knew and liked, what a deal.
But, but.... what if one of us gets sick and we can't afford this house any more? What if we come to a point where we want to sell, and the elevator makes it a white elephant? (I don't know of any houses with an elevator, not even my wifes rich uncle).
I want to, she wants to -- but we don't know if we have the guts to, is what it comes down to.
Have you thought about a stair lift. They are all over the internet, much less expensive, easier to install, and appear to do the job quite well. Also when it's time to sell your home they can be removed if necessary. Hub and I love it where we are, but basically we live upstairs, and know our legs aren't going to be able to keep going up and down the steps, so we, too, are trying to decide what to do. Cate
We're thought briefly about that. You're right, they are about a fifth the cost of an elevator, but they do take up about a third of the width of the stairs. Not sure we'd want to give up the space. Which is ironic, I suppose, given that what we're talking about could mean that we didn't use the stairs at all.
I think an elevator would be cool. I just don't want to pay for it. But maybe I could find one of those Elevator Operator hats -- that might make it worthwhile...
My grandmother just had laundry facilities installed in the closet in the guest room on her main floor, eliminating the need for her to go down to her basement on a regular basis. Could you just remodel the house to have all the functions you need on one floor?
We could probably make do, by moving the laundry stuff up to the second floor, and the television (which is in the den), but then I think we'd feel cramped, like one of those guys you read about every so often who lives in an apartment on New Yorks Upper West Side, said apartment crammed with sixty years worth of take out chinese boxes, TV Guides, and old socks. I like the idea of doing it, but I don't think we could swing the execution. Thanks for the concept, though.
Post a Comment