None of us is getting any younger. You know that already.
So does Jean De Laura, an interior designer and home builder who wants to do something about it. De Laura, whose firm, Design One, is participating in the City of Chicago Parade of Homes, decided to create a house designed to “grow old” with its owners.
It’s a house that enables arthritic hands to simply push a lever to run water, rather than grappling painfully with a faucet; a house with electrical outlets at knee-not ankle-height, so aching backs don’t have to bend so far to plug in a lamp; a house that is even wheelchair-ready, from the gently inclined sidewalk that leads to the accessible side door, to extra-wide interior doors, to a niche under the kitchen counters that accommodates a cook who’s sitting, not standing.
De Laura has tried to think of everything.
This house, at 4516 S. Oakenwald Ave., is the kind that De Laura plans to build a career from. When she attended the Harrington Institute of Interior Design in Chicago a few years ago, she was made thoroughly aware of how the design community had to react to the ramifications of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The 1989 law pertains primarily to how businesses and public buildings in certain circumstances have to modify their facilities to accommodate disabled workers and members of the public who frequent them. The more she realized how business places were changing, the more she noticed how home builders weren’t.
“My mission is to tell builders that this is needed,” said De Laura, who is not physically disabled herself. Her concern is broader than wheelchair access; De Laura wants people who are having homes built now, often in the prime of their lives, to think about what they might need when they get older.
Without question, America is getting grayer. The U.S. Bureau of the Census projects that a quarter-century from now, the fastest-growing segment of the population will be the group that is 55 to 64 years old. The bureau predicts that the number of Americans in that category will increase to 42.3 million, up from 8.2 percent now to 13 percent of all Americans by 2020.
In simpler terms, the United Nations last year postulated that retirees soon will start to outnumber children in Europe and North America for the first time.
An older population is going to need housing that accommodates the limited mobility that often comes with aging, De Laura says, admitting that she isn’t the first to think of this kind of design; other builders have created a few houses and condos in the Chicago area and around the country in recent years that utilize these “universal design” concepts.
But with her house being open to the public during the Parade of Homes, she hopes it will nudge builders to think about simple substitutions that could be made in their standard repertoires without sacrificing cost or design.
Jim Charlton, director of programs at Access Living of Greater Chicago, an advocacy group for disabled people, says De Laura will have a major obstacle to overcome: The kind of “what if” planning she advocates is not something that the public wants to hear.
“For so long, people have just accepted housing as inaccessible, and if they have to, they will just tear it apart and make it adaptable. That, of course, is expensive,” Charlton said. “And if you’re a (real estate) sales person, you’re not going to emphasize this thing that people don’t want to think about.”
George Genung, executive director of the National Association of Home Builders’ Council on Seniors Housing, agrees that it’s a hard sell, both among home buyers and home builders. He says builders will make such features standard when they are convinced that the marketplace wants it.
“There aren’t a lot of people looking for accessible units,” Genung said. “If people were looking for it, they would build it.” He said he sees builder interest in such facilities as multi-unit housing for seniors, but very limited activity in single-family homes.
Another problem, De Laura admits, is that the public in general presumes that a house outfitted for such a need would look institutional.
“What they perceive it to be and what it is are two different things,” De Laura said, walking through the airy, brightly colored home. When she first talked to her husband, who also is a home builder, about her ideas for the Parade home, he was skeptical, saying that the idea was too complicated and potentially just plain ugly.
“But when I made up my list of products and features that were part of my idea for a house with universal design, he said, `Well, that’s no big deal.’
“And most of this stuff is on the market already,” she said. “I didn’t have to special-order anything.” Their presence in the house is subtle. “I tried to make it so aesthetically pleasing that people won’t notice these things now, but they will when they need them.”
Her Parade of Homes entry, called the Jesse Owens, is a two-story, three-bedroom design with its master bedroom and bath on the ground floor. Upstairs are two bedrooms and one bath plus a loft that could be reconfigured to make another bedroom, De Laura said. With its upgraded features, such as elaborate maple built-in cabinetry in the loft, its sleek kitchen and hand-painted murals and ceilings, the 2,200-square-foot house is priced at $240,000, though she says she would build it with many universal design features for less.
Obviously, lacking an elevator, the two-story home is not completely wheelchair-accessible, but that wasn’t De Laura’s intent. Rather, she wanted a house for everybody, one that will be ready to accommodate if life’s circumstances change. She says that safety and convenience features in the house not only have older and disabled adults in mind, but also children.
For example, wall light switches have been lowered to a more kid-reachable height. The casement-style windows swing out with a single hand crank at the bottom that is simple to operate. Faucets are pressure-controlled to prevent scalding.
The Parade entry is De Laura’s first solo effort at home building, although she and her husband, Dennis, have a building company, De Laura Inc. of Hickory Hills. Previously, her Design One company in Lemont offered only interior design services. Intent on developing her own home-building business, she seized on universal design as a marketing niche and expanded her services to include homebuilding, she said.
“The time has come for builders to do this,” De Laura said, leading a visitor through the bright and smartly furnished house. Among the design considerations:
– The room-lightening maple floors have had their potential for slipperiness reduced with a coating of what De Laura terms “impregnated acrylic” that adds resistance.
– Bathroom doors open out, not in, as in conventional construction. “(With doors that open inward) if you slip and fall in a small bathroom, and you’re lying there, perhaps unconscious, maybe nobody can get in to help you-at least not easily,” De Laura explained.
– Toilets are higher for easier use by those with limited mobility. Sinks are wall-mounted, so a wheelchair could roll right up to and underneath them.
– All bath/shower facilities offer an ample supply of grab bars, which are rails or towel racks designed to support a person’s weight. “That’s safety at any age,” De Laura says. The large shower stalls have no threshold barriers.
– The main-floor clothes washer and dryer are front-loaders, simplifying the chore of getting clothes into and out of the machines.
– Risers on the stairway to the second floor are less steep and the treads have been made deeper to provide more stable footing.
– The Honeywell thermostat and programmable security system’s keypad has large, easily readable numbers on its big buttons. The security system has “panic” buttons plainly marked “Fire” and “Police” and “Special,” which alert a designated person in an emergency.
– The first-floor master suite has sliding-door access to the back yard, providing not only a view, but an easy emergency exit.
– Closets throughout have the wire shelving that has become almost standard in suburban subdivision construction. But these shelves are hung at a level that would be easily reachable from a wheelchair.
– The kitchen was a high priority, and the result is an elegant, futuristic “food preparation center,” as they say in the design world. Again, De Laura points out that her emphasis went beyond wheelchair access, considering convenience and safety in general.
She strides purposefully to the built-in oven, whose standard-size door opens on hinges at the side; she regards typical pull-down oven doors as cumbersome, even for able-bodied cooks. At counter level under the oven, De Laura is going to install a sturdy pull-out board that comes to the rescue when you’ve latched onto a pan that’s too hot to handle.
Countertops overall have been lowered to 32 inches from the typical 36. Deep “toe kicks” (recesses in the cabinetry) allow a wheelchair to slide up to the counter. The built-in dishwasher has been raised, both for easier loading and for avoiding back strain at unloading.
The gas cooktop’s controls are reachable, right in front. And underneath the cooktops, in what De Laura says is usually wasted space, is a large shallow drawer that keeps utensils at easy reach.
If the prospect of designing an entire home in this manner is daunting or out of reach on a remodeling budget, De Laura suggests considering tackling little things that might mean a lot one day. “It’s never going to hurt to have grab bars around your tub,” she suggests.
