Lasting Impressions Home Remodeling Center, LTD
As Printed In The Suburban Journels Of North County
"News Release"
December 7, 2004
PHONE: (314) 837-7722 FAX (314) 837-0655
2168 N. Waterford; Florissant, Missouri 63033
St. Louis Designer Keeps Seniors in Their Homes With Universal Design
Florissant, MO—St. Louis interior designer Becky Bilyeu, ASID is expanding her business to include Universal Design, which Bilyeu believes will become more in demand as extended care costs rise and more seniors are faced with the choice of moving out or adapting their homes to their changing needs.
The average annual cost for nursing home care in the U.S. today is $48,000 and that amount is growing. Medicare doesn’t cover these costs and unless someone has adequate long-term care insurance, an extended stay in a nursing home can quickly deplete the typical senior citizen’s life savings.
Even if cost is not a factor, seniors generally prefer to continue living independently in familiar surroundings for as long as possible. Familiar surroundings promote a sense of security, peace and independence. The problem, however, is most homes were built to accommodate the needs of healthy young adults, not people with restricted mobility.
Homeowners can, of course, adapt their homes to their changing needs, but in the past that meant implementing designs that immediately labeled the home as handicapped accessible. Those changes often gave the home an institutional appearance and narrowed the market of prospective buyers when the homeowner later tried to sell the property.
Today the new trend is to use elements of what is known as universal design or barrier-free design. Universal design is more accommodating to homeowners as they age, but there is nothing about it that shouts handicap accessible. Small changes such as pocket doors on bathrooms and sliding doors for storage areas, using levers on faucets and door handles, lowering light switches and raising outlets are all aspects of universal design and factor into making a home more accommodating to people with limited mobility.
While the market for universal design is already growing, when 75 million baby boomers begin reaching their senior years the need for this style of design is expected to explode.
Bilyeu, who is the owner of Lasting Impressions Home Remodeling Center, LTD in Florissant, Missouri, has 26 years of experience in home design and remodeling and saw the need to address this growing market. To better serve an aging market base, Bilyeu obtained training in designing for the disabled and mature markets and also universal designing for kitchens and baths.
Bilyeu says with this training and expansion she can now better service the needs of today’s and tomorrow’s mature homeowners. “Mature homeowners want homes that will accommodate their needs as they age, but at the same time they aren’t looking for living space that looks like an institution,” says Bilyeu. “Universal design spans the gap between standard home designs and handicapped accessible design. It is more accommodating to homeowners as they age than traditional designs, but it also has a pleasing appearance.”
Bilyeu specializes in kitchen and bath designs, two of the most problem-prone rooms for seniors and people with limited mobility. Bilyeu says implementing only a few modifications can often make the difference between seniors’ ability to live independently in their own homes several more years and being forced to move into a nursing home. When one considers the cost for only one year of nursing home care, it’s easy to see why many seniors find it cost effective to adapt their homes to their changed needs.
Bilyeu says some of the design changes most frequently needed in kitchens are raising the dishwasher, lowering the microwave oven, and creating seating capabilities at the sink and cook top. For bathrooms Bilyeu says installing a taller commode, placing seating and hand-held shower faucets in the shower area, and restructuring the shower floor surface and entryway to make it wheelchair accessible will make that room safer and more accessible to people with limited mobility. Throughout the home Bilyeu suggests adding extra lighting and replacing carpets and area rugs with hard floor surfaces.
Bilyeu suggests people begin planning early how they can adapt their homes to allow them to continue living in them as they get older. “It’s best if they can plan and make these changes early so they don’t feel panicked when the need actually arises,” says Bilyeu. Her website, www.lastingimpressionsremodeling.com, has examples of common universal design adaptations.
While retrofitting existing homes to make them more accommodating is a lot of what Bilyeu does, she also helps clients implement universal design elements into building plans for new homes. “Because universal design doesn’t overtly appear handicapped accessible and makes products and buildings more accommodating for everyone, some people are choosing universal design during pre-retirement years,” says Bilyeu. “They want a home that will allow them to age in place.”
As baby boomers reach retirement age over the next two decades they will be healthier, more active, and have a longer life expectancy than past generations. Because of those differences and the rising eligibility ages for Social Security, many boomers will approach their senior years with different ideas about where they want to live as they grow older. Bilyeu believes positioning herself in the universal design market now will enable her to ride the wave of this growing market as it continues to swell over the next 20 years.
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