As a senior, it becomes a bit more obvious that there are fewer years in front of us and mobility may become an issue later too. As such, it’s time to be proactive about any home repairs, improvements or replacements needed to create a low maintenance home. Make your life easier in with these 5 home improvements for your senior years.
Replacing Windows: Home improvements for your senior years
If you keep having drafts inside the home and the insulation doesn’t seem right, check out your windows. Run an outstretched palm of your hand along the edge of the window frame to verify if there are any drafts. Probably, you’ll discover that it’s cooler at the window frame than it should be, at which point you’ve found the source of your difficulties.
When your windows are a decade or older already and showing wear, then it’s sensible to get a window replacement. This will give you 20-25 years of use with new windows, which probably will be all you need to get through your senior years.
A window installation should be performed by a reputable company such as American Vision Windows . They are veteran and family-owned. Their reputation is everything to them, so customers can have confidence that they’ll receive great value for money.
Getting Cabinets at the Right Height Level
Crouching down becomes more difficult with age. The knees just aren’t what they once were, making getting down to ground level harder and more painful. Similarly, relying on a set of climbing steps to reach the higher levels of a bedroom wardrobe or a kitchen cabinet becomes problematic on unsteady feet.
It’s sensible to make changes to adjust storage to ensure it’s at a suitable height level for you. Avoiding pain or injuries is important when you’re getting older – healing is slower and an operation might be ruled out due to your age. Therefore, it’s best to avoid an accident rather than deal with the consequences of one.
It may be a good idea to change some cabinets to ones that are at a more suitable height. Alternatively, pullout cabinet drawers on sliders that gently roll out allow easier access, and make a great home improvement for your senior years.
Deal with Dripping Faucets
While you won’t lose too much water due to a dripping faucet in the sink, it can be annoying when it just never seems to go away.
The procedure and parts required to fix a leaky faucet depend on what type of faucet it is and the true cause of it. For instance, washers can wear through over time or the valve itself may no longer be reliable. Sometimes, a fix is as simple as tightening things up here and there, but more often than not, the faucet must be taken apart to get to the root of the problem.
The good news is that once the cause is determined, it’s a fixable problem that shouldn’t return again anytime soon.
Giving Rooms a New Paint Job
Paint may fade over time, pick up scratches, other marks or just peel off. A new coat of paint (or two) in a room that’s looking a little drabber these days works well. However, you may prefer to update the color scheme to something brighter and happier for you.
Certainly, pastel hues reflect enough natural and artificial light to make the room brighter than it may have been previously. That’s helpful because eyesight can continue to worsen with age. They can start letting in less light, so anything we can do to increase the brightness of our surroundings is beneficial.
See if you can get your family to provide some assistance on the weekend to avoid the cost of a painter/decorator or handyperson. All they’ll need is a paint roller, some paint, and dust sheets to go on the floor to prevent paint splashes hitting the carpet or wooden flooring. Don’t forget to cover the furniture or ask relatives to relocate it while the painting is going on.
How’s the Flooring?
If you have carpeting on many of the floors, are the carpets going to last the duration you need? Are there areas of the carpet that are wearing through or now threadbare? It may be worth having the carpeting replaced in the worst affected rooms.
Also, look at the flooring in the kitchen. This gets considerable wear over time and mopping the floor only does so much. Are some of the tiles starting to come up from the surface below and creating a tripping hazard? In which case, they could be stuck down with commercial-strength glue to remove this risk for you.
When in your senior years, safety in the home along with convenience when reaching for items becomes a more serious consideration. Also, making home improvements for your senior years now to avoid needing to do them later makes life easier.
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