Making Your Home Retirement Ready

An excerpt from "The Wall Street Journal Guide to the Business of Life" on design features that can make your home more livable as you age.
By: WALL STREET JOURNAL STAFF REPORTERS: The Wall Street Journal Online
A growing area of coverage for The Wall Street Journal is what we call the business of life. The intent is to report the latest news in a way that helps readers make sound decisions about their own lives. The new book, "The Wall Street Journal Guide to the Business of Life," edited by Journal editor Nancy Keates, offers strategies on everything from getting the best medical care to helping a child get into his or her top college.

Below is selection about remodeling your home with retirement in mind.

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With America's 76 million baby boomers edging toward retirement, design for "aging in place" is catching on. Even homeowners in their 30s are sometimes thinking ahead to retirement when they build their homes, installing features like extra-wide doorways (easier to get a wheelchair through) and space for a future elevator.

So-called universal design has been around since the early 1990s, when the Americans with Disabilities Act required public spaces to be handicapped accessible. The early universal-design products were unattractive and obvious, though. The products have since evolved to be more discreet, and are finally starting to catch on with homeowners and builders.

Some of the products have an industrial look that fits in with the industrial urban-loft aesthetic, like motion-detector faucets and sinks that can be raised or lowered electronically. There are elevator cabs that can be hidden in a closet, and handhold recesses in shower walls make an unobtrusive substitute for grab bars.

The improvements are coming none too soon, especially given that in some places (Florida; Pima County, Ariz.) builders are required to put in some elder-friendly features.

But the additions can be pricey -- an elevator can run as high as $30,000. And it can take some adjustments for younger homeowners to learn how to live with universal design elements -- doors with levers instead of knobs may be easier for the elderly to open, but toddlers have an easier time opening them, too. The same goes for lower shelves and light switches. Still, given the aging of the population, it's probably worth at least taking universal design into consideration when building a new home.

Going for the Old

With baby boomers creeping up on retirement age, there's a growing market for elderly friendly products. Here are some of the latest:

Approach sink: a motorized kitchen sink that can be raised to standard height or lowered for wheelchair-users at the touch of a button. The Idaho universal design company's sales have quadrupled to $1 million over the past two years.

True Touch dimmer: one of a series of senior-friendly products from a lighting-controls company, it's designed for people with limited range of motion.

Delta e-Flow faucet: it turns on and off electronically with a wave of the hand. Good for those with arthritis -- but kids can have a little too much fun.

Duet washer and dryer: a high-end front-loading washer and dryer with an optional pedestal drawer that eases loading and unloading.

Brass Leaf lever: an arthritis-friendly door lever, shaped like a leaf, that makes opening a door easier and has a patented latch that can't be locked accidentally.


- Adapted from "The Wall Street Journal Guide to the Business of Life," edited by Nancy Keates (Crown Publishers/Wall Street Journal Books, 2005). For more information, please visit http://wsjbooks.com.

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