When people call us about making a house work for the next twenty years, they almost always start with the bathroom. They are right to. According to the CDC, more than one out of four older people falls each year, and less than half of them tell their doctor (CDC, Facts About Older Adult Falls).
The short version of this post: fix the bathroom first, then the way into the house, then the stairs and the small things that wobble. Leave the kitchen and the big layout changes until you have decided how long you are staying. That last decision is the one that should drive everything else.
Most people want to stay put, and most houses are not ready
AARP’s 2024 Home and Community Preferences Survey found that 75% of adults 50 and older want to remain in their current homes as they age, and 51% say they need a home that supports independent aging. Nearly half expect to need changes to make that happen, and the ones they named most were grab bars (72%), entryway improvements (71%) and kitchen upgrades (39%) (AARP, December 2024).
That ranking lines up with what we see in Cookeville houses. The bathroom and the front steps are where the trouble is. The kitchen is usually where the wish list is.
Start with how long you are staying
Josie Davis designs the renovations at H & H Construction, and before she talks finishes or budgets, she asks about the timeline:
“Are we talking like three years and more space? Are we talking 10 years? Are we talking 20 years? What is the livable space that you’re wanting to add?”
— Josie Davis, H & H Construction
For aging in place the answer is usually the long one, and that changes the advice. A house you plan to sell in three years gets resale-safe choices. A house you plan to stay in gets built around the people living in it. In Josie’s words, “make it what you want. Make it what you want it to be.”
The bathroom comes first
The tub wall is the single hardest thing in most bathrooms to get past safely. Stepping over a tub edge onto a wet surface is the move that gets harder every year.
The fix we build most often is a shower with no curb at all, or a full wet room, where the whole bathroom is waterproofed and tiled and the floor carries straight into the shower. Our Cookeville bathroom remodeling page describes it as zero-threshold entry, and it is the same feature people ask for because it looks good. That is the point. A bathroom built for aging in place does not have to look like a hospital.
Three more things belong in the same project:
- Blocking in the walls before the tile goes up. A grab bar is only as strong as what it is screwed into. If the wall is open, add solid wood backing where bars could go later, even if you do not want the bars yet.
- A seat or a bench in the shower. Easier to build in than to add after.
- Light. A bright bathroom and a lit path from the bedroom at night are cheap compared to everything else on this list.
The way in matters as much as the way through
Entryway improvements were second on the AARP list, and in Cookeville that number is easy to believe. A lot of houses here sit on a slope, so there are steps at the front door, steps at the back door and a drop off the deck. We wrote about how the hill shapes outdoor projects in deck or patio? your slope already decided, and the same grade decides how hard it is to get one step-free door into the house.
Pick one entrance, usually the one nearest the driveway, and make that the easy one. Depending on the lot, that might mean a ramp, a landing built out to meet the grade, regrading a walk, or a covered porch so the steps are never icy. Railings on both sides of every set of steps are the cheapest version of this, and they help everyone who visits.
Inside, lever door handles in place of round knobs and wider openings where walls are already being opened are easy wins during a bigger job.
Small fixes buy the most time
Not every part of aging in place is a remodel. Our handyman services in Cookeville include grab bars and safety rails, loose railing and bannister fixes, door hardware and toilet replacement. A taller toilet, a tightened handrail, a second rail on the basement stairs: none of these are big jobs, and they are often the ones that matter most this year.
Josie has a line about this that we repeat often:
“To me and Alec, there’s no small job. Every job has an impact to the customer and to the family that’s living in the home.”
— Josie Davis
A wobbly handrail that makes your parents nervous every time they come over is exactly that kind of job.
What can wait, and the one big question
The kitchen can usually wait. It came third on the AARP list for a reason. Raising a microwave out of a low cabinet or swapping in pull-out shelves helps, but a full kitchen remodel is rarely the thing standing between someone and living at home.
The question that cannot wait forever is where you sleep. If the main bedroom and the only full bath are upstairs, the long-term answer is a bedroom and bathroom on the main floor. Sometimes that is a conversion of a room you already have. Sometimes it is an addition, and that brings its own questions about rooflines, setbacks and budget. We covered those in what to ask yourself before you add on and home additions in Cookeville.
You do not have to do it all at once. Do the bathroom and one easy entrance now, fix the small things this month, and plan the bigger move while there is time to plan it.
📞 (931) 329-5754 | 📧 davishandh@gmail.com