
As you get older its important to ensure that your home remains comfortable and practical for your day-to-day life. This isn’t an admission of defeat, but instead a way of comfortably managing your retirement. Below, we explore the best ways to make your home more accessible when you retire.
An accessible kitchen
The kitchen should be the centrepiece of your home – a comforting space where you can easily cook and eat with company. There are some small ways where you can make the kitchen easier for you. This could include a kettle tipper to help your poor boiling water, or a spike board so that you can chop fruit and vegetables one handed. Assistive tin, bottle and jar openers can also be helpful too. But you can also change the nature of the kitchen more widely: by installing a pull-out pantry with an accessible countertop, you can make your kitchen easier to navigate.
Bathroom adjustments
The last thing you want is to fall in the bathroom due to it being inaccessible. However, there are plenty of ways to make it safer. This doesn’t have to mean you go through the immense expense of remodelling your entire bathroom (it usually costs between £2000 and £7500). Instead, you can make smaller upgrades to make the room more accessible. Grab bars can be excellent for providing extra support and can come in a range of elegant styles to fit your bathroom. Meanwhile, a no-threshold shower can have you avoid falling, as can a higher toilet.
Improved lighting
Improved lighting can help you avoid tripping over anything in the house during the early mornings or evenings. Begin this process by assessing your home for dark spots that could be dangerous. In these places you can revamp the lighting with light strips or floor lights to boost visibility. On top of this, you can also switch your lights to energy saving bulbs to conserve some extra cash each month.
The only drawback to making your home more accessible in retirement is that it can quickly become expensive. However, if you need a financial boost, an equity release can be a secure way to safeguard your future. By studying how equity release works you can make an educated decision on whether this is the right path towards making your home more comfortable as you get older.