Renovation Revolution
by Ashlea Ebeling
Friday, June 13, 2008
provided by Forbes.com


You've got a new excuse to remodel: preparing for the limitations of old age. Need a grab bar with that hot tub?

Forty years ago mary emma and Dan E. McConaughey built their dream house in Atlanta--a glass-and-stone split-level set on a 5-acre wooded site with bog trails and a waterfall that once powered a gristmill. Then four years ago Mary Emma, now 73, broke her ankle and found herself on crutches, painfully counting the 11 steps from the main living area up to the nearest bathroom.

So with the help of their builder son, Warner, the couple began what semiretired lawyer Dan, 79, wryly calls the "termination renovation" of their home. They added a 15-by-17-foot multipurpose room (convertible into a bedroom), a bath with wheelchair-accessible shower, easier access to storage space and to Dan's prized wine cellar, and a hot tub on a deck overlooking the waterfall. Since both Mary Emma and Dan are now fit, they use the multipurpose room for her book club, his law-book writing and grandkids' art projects.

With such touches as stone from the same quarry used for their original house and reclaimed wormy chestnut to match the old paneling, the project cost $200,000. But it adds to the house's high-end appeal and, more important, should allow the McConaugheys to remain comfortable in their home as they age. "We want to stay here. It's just a part of us," says Mary Emma, a retired psychologist.

While the McConaugheys' wooded retreat is unusual, their desire to stay put isn't. A survey by AARP found 90% of folks 65 to 74 want to live out their years in their current homes. Yet many will find those homes ill-suited for physical limitations that can come with old age. One solution is to remodel while you're spry and able to supervise the work.

Does it make sense to pour money into your house when prices are falling? It might. With new housing starts at a 17-year low and remodeling activity slipping, you should be able to get a lower price and more attention from a first-rate contractor, says Frank Anton, chief executive of Hanley Wood, which publishes annual estimates of the percentage of remodeling-project costs that are recouped when a home is sold ( see table). Contractors' own costs--for subcontractors and many supplies--are coming down. So now is the time to bargain.

The percentage of cost you'll recover has declined with house prices. But if you're building for the long haul in a good neighborhood, renovating can still make sense financially as well as personally.

If you do remodel, the key is what's known as "universal design." That doesn't mean installing ugly wheelchair ramps that destroy your house's curb appeal. What it does mean is building in features that make a home safe and accessible for someone in a wheelchair, someone who has arthritis or trouble with steps, or even someone who is short and shouldn't be balancing on a stool to retrieve hot macaroni from a microwave (a grandchild, for example).

Universal design features include wide doorways; a no-step entry to a house; flush thresholds from room to room; lever door handles; adjustable closet shelves; kitchen cabinets with roll-out drawers; good lighting; higher electrical outlets; lower light switches; and reinforced walls for grab bars in bathrooms.

If you're replacing your washer and dryer, take a look at front-loading models and install them on a main living level--not in a basement, down hazardous steps.

You don't need to settle for fusty design; architect Michael Graves, 73, who's relied on a wheelchair since 2003, is creating a new line of home products for people with limited mobility that includes a handheld shower massager and a bath bench. Certain high-tech add-ons, such as controls that let you (or someone else) monitor your stove or air conditioner remotely, are also senior-friendly.

Still, most universal design ideas aren't novel and some are downright retro, e.g., laundry chutes and dumbwaiters. That's why it's surprising that even many 55-plus adult communities don't have such basics as a bathroom large enough for a wheelchair. "They still put a toilet in a closet," says Patricia Nunan, a designer who works with homeowners on accessible renovations. One reason is marketing--these complexes sell an active lifestyle. Another is cost. (Proponents insist, however, that universal design needn't add more than a few percentage points to the cost of a new building project.)

Naturally, renovations that fit in have more resale value, says Remodelestimates.com founder Daniel Fritschen. Say you live in a neighborhood with lots of young families. That downstairs master bedroom with the wheelchair-accessible bath and the outdoor-level entrance you're adding should also work as a family room/mudroom for kids. Use sliding pocket doors for the bedroom, so it can be opened up to the rest of the living area.

While most good architects and contractors can talk the universal design talk, you may want a specialist. Rebecca Brenner, a 53-year-old pastor in Mohnton, Pa., paid Nunan $1,600 for design work and two site visits for a $140,000 home renovation finished last year. (The National Association of Home Builders' Web site lists consultants who have its Certified Aging in Place Specialist tag.)

Brenner had seen how her late husband struggled, after two strokes, to get up the one big step to the front door of the brick rancher they bought in 1991. "It's easy for us who are able to say it's only one step," she says. So Nunan suggested she replace that step with a curving concrete walkway that would set off a display of Brenner's late father's welded-steel sculptures. The project doubled the size of the living room, added a ground-level bedroom and turned a tiny existing ground-level bedroom into a big new bath with an open shower, a built-in bench and a wheelchair-height overhang sink with a removable cabinet underneath. The wall behind the cabinet is tiled; if the cabinet is removed for wheelchair access, the wall won't need to be redone.

Does the idea of preparing now for possible future decline strike you as morose or a waste? Consider the alternative, says Elinor Ginzler, AARP's senior vice president for livable communities. "If you fall and break your hip, and want to go home after rehab, but you don't have a way to get to the second floor, then you can't go home," she says.

There can be a tax advantage to waiting. You may be able to deduct home modifications as medical expenses. The rules are tricky; the deduction only applies to the difference between a modification's cost and the value it adds to the property. See irs Publication 502 for details.

Meanwhile, whatever your age, if you're planning to build or remodel it makes sense to consider both your own future needs and what might appeal to older buyers. When the young McConaugheys originally built their dream house, they rejected their prescient architect's suggestion that they put a bedroom and bath on the main level as a convenience for their old age. "People just don't think that way early in their marriage," says Mary Emma. "Later on you have to face that."



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