Retirement forever homes

[OCSockOrphanage]

If you are starting to think about being old, what are your issues?

We live in a modern house with huge rooms and a great view. It will soon be too big for us. We would like the same size rooms, and a wonderful outlook, just fewer rooms, in a pleasant small town with all the amenities within walking distance, plus a mainline station and a decent airport within easy reach. Where and how do you search? I don't plan to move to a rabbit hutch bungalow, but this is a fab family house, and it seems miserable to hog it forever because we can't find an alternative that has any appeal.

We are planning to down size, number of rooms but don't want to sacrifice room sizes. All the bungalows we have looked at have minuscule rooms, our king size bed would take up a whole room. It's very disappointing. But we lived all on one level for many years abroad and loved it.
Do builders think we shrink all our furniture and only need a cupboard sized kitchen on retiring? We will still have grown kids over, I like a social kitchen. Our family size house is getting ready to sell in the next 12 months, one bathroom left to renovate.
Then we hunt for our retirement house. I'm dreading the search. We'll be there while youngest Dd is still in high school and college, so need a decent spare bedroom too. I want grandchildren to visit and sleep over occasionally too.

So we are not alone? Good luck with your search!

We will need to move to somewhere that doesn't have so many steps (outside, but also inside). My Dad cleverly designed his house to have a large downstairs bedroom and bathroom so they can stay there indefinitely if they want to. I think a walk in shower or one with a slim tray would be a good idea. I always told MIL to look for somewhere near local shops or directly on a bus route (which may mean they don't move now they have a new bus stop outside their house).

Would you have a budget to do some work? You could always knock smaller rooms together into fewer larger rooms (and redo it all to your taste/future proof at the same time)

I worked on a project for a couple looking for a forever home last year - on the plans we knocked together rooms to make a four bed bungalow into a two bed, two ensuite, and extra loo for guests, home - basically his and hers bedrooms and bathrooms - and a better set up kitchen and dining area, with the whole place with wider doors and more walk way space that also would be wheelchair friendly, if needed, at a later stage.

They asked for a separate lounge to kitchen and dining area - I quote " I can get a bit of rest in the kitchen from the grandchildren while I make a cup of tea as they won't leave the room with the telly in "

The bathrooms I designed so that there was space for wheelchair turning and positions for grab rails - (but they won't be put in until they are needed, as they aren't pretty )

On plan it looked like a modernised home - I knew and they knew the place was future proofed - but ultimately - it just looked refurbed and refreshed.

They used the designs to shop around and secure a contractor.

It's something that can be done to be more specifically for you, by changing an existing home - and that is way more personal than buying an 'old people's flat in a complex ' which is almost admitting your are old - and I don't think any of us that to admit that until we really have to !!!

That's an interesting story and very sound logic for your clients, OnePlan. We should have some budget after we move if we buy next house sensibly. It will be a year or more before we activate our master plan as our chick has yet to fly the nest. But I want to have had the thoughts before searching for houses.

We have two DCs in primary/preschool but DH is quite a bit older than me so while we are moving to a large family home near the primary school, we are also thinking about this.

The house we are moving to has an extra reception room on the ground floor, with a French window out onto the courtyard garden. I can see that being a good (at least temporary) bedroom should one of us have problems climbing stairs. We have an under stairs loo in our current house but may need to think about whether that's possible in the new house. It's been great for potty training but we are done with that now, touch wood, so not urgent.

We will have the DCs at home going to school obviously for quite some time after DH retires and my retirement will be before at least one of them leaves school too - so we'll still need their bedrooms and a spare bed for friends and relations.

And once I retire I plan to spend a lot of time in my craft cave, so the attic room is intended for that (and I can hide there while I'm supposed to be working/cooking etc.)

I think location (city centre, near hospital and shops) would help if one of us became unable to drive, also.

We could use our current home in the UK for a long time, but will live in it for 5 years when we move back to UK until dh is 64 and I am 59, and then make some decisions about what we do.

We bought the house years prior to having ds, so it was future proofed for a family, but I think as we get older, and don't want to run 2 cars, we will have to look at moving closer to bus routes and be within walking distance of shops, doc, library etc.