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Welcome to Let’s Build with Armada, the podcast where Washington homeowners learn how to remodel with clarity, strategy, and confidence—on a schedule that follows real projects, not a rigid calendar.
I’m Charlie Carter from Armada Design & Build. After years of working across the greater Seattle area, I’ve learned that successful remodeling isn’t about luck. It’s about planning, transparent conversations, and understanding how every decision—from windows to insurance to material selections—affects long-term value.
In each episode, I sit down with experts to answer the questions homeowners genuinely care about:
- Why your PNW windows cry every winter
- Financing options that actually make sense in 2026
- How to not get burned by a cheap insurance quote
- What adds value in Seattle… and what just burns cash
- How to plan a DADU without turning your backyard into a 2-year construction zone
Whether you’re preparing for a kitchen or bathroom remodel, planning a full-home upgrade, or exploring a backyard DADU for equity or rental income, this podcast gives you the clarity you need to move forward confidently.
Listen here, watch more real projects on our YouTube channel, and visit us when you’re ready to build with confidence.
And don’t forget to follow the show—so you never miss an episode that could save you time, money, and stress.
Visit the Armada Design Center in Bellevue when you’re ready to start planning your own home transformation!
📍 15600 NE 8th St. Suite O2, Bellevue, WA 98008
📞 425-587-8286
🌐 https://armadabuild.com/?utm_source=transistor
Hi, welcome back. Charlie Carter with Armada Design and Build here. Today we are back for another episode of Let's Build with Armada, our podcast where we want to try and educate you, the homeowner, about things to do with renovating, remodeling, updating, keeping up to date your home. If you want to build a new home, just trying to get education out there for you to understand what that's all about, what the whole remodeling, renovation, house stuff world is. There are a lot of people out there that do it for you. These are often very big numbers. It's a very big investment. And we want you to be well informed and well educated. When you go to the marketplace and you start talking to some people about doing a project at your house, what is that like? What are the things you need to be aware of? What are the things you need to look out for? What are the things just to be concerned about? And how do we navigate through this process? So today we're trying something a little bit different. Um all of our prior podcasts we have had a guest, someone in here that we're talking to that's an expert on certain things in different areas, you know, mortgages and real estate and insurance and all that type of stuff. But today we're just going to do a long sort of monologue with me. This is something that I think is very important um for people to know. I think it's appropriate for where we are in the world and the the population that we have, the aging baby boomer kind of thing. And now as a Gen X, you know, I'm starting to on the leading edge of that starting to think about the long term for myself and my wife. And so it's not an out of time discussion here that I want to have. And so the thing for today that I really want to get into a little bit and cover for you is aging in place and living in your home long-term when you start to having those health concerns, mobility issues, uh getting around, can we cook, you know, medical stuff and all of that kind of thing. I want to talk a little bit about that and what's that like and what can be done to help you stay in your home longer to make it more friendly and so that you're able to be there maybe with some assistance or maybe not but so that you don't have to sell your home. You're where you want to be. You're where everything is familiar, your friends, your family, whatever the case may be. So that's what we're going to talk about today. aging in place, why it matters, what's important, what are the things to look out for, be aware of. Uh, so let's get into it. But before, again, thank you. This is Charlie with Armada. Click on the link below for other videos that we've done. Like, subscribe, rate, and review us on Apple Podcast or any of the place that you get your podcast. um and leave a comment about something that you would like us to talk about uh down the road, another topic that would be important to you or you would see some benefit from. If it's related to this, then you know we would be able to help you with that. So let us know what you want to think about. So starting off with aging in place, right? And why is this important to think about now versus later? If you're going to be in your home or you want to be in your home or you foresee yourself being in your home long term then and a pro and a project is something that's coming up, you can add on some aging in place component pieces to make that easier for you to do long term so that you can be there when those things start to happen. Everybody's getting older. We all do it. You know, it's hard to believe. I've now been doing remodeling and renovation stuff for over 40 years. So that's a long time and it, you know, I'm going to be continuing to get older and we're going to need things in our house to make that easier. And when we did our last renovation, I thought about that. Now, are we going to be in that house for the next 20 years? I don't know. I would think probably not. But I did a few things along the way that if we were going to be in that house long term, it would be easier for us to be there. So those are things to think about. So most seniors, and we did some research, and this says 90% of seniors want to stay in their home as long as they can. And I think that they would want to, and I think most people would agree. What can we do to be here? And the aging population, right, the the baby boomer generation, those born in the mid40s to the early 60s, the leading edge of that, the oldest group of baby boomers, is in their early 80s now. Um, and then Gen X, which is me, the earliest Gen X's are starting to reach the the 60. I'm not quite there yet. Getting close, but not there quite yet, but are about 60 to down into, you know, 45 or so. That's the next wave. But that baby boom population is very big. That's the biggest sort of still demographic that we have. We're pretty good with the younger groups below us. Um, but those are the folks that are worried about that and what can we do to help them? And so what are the modifications that we need to do or should do or can be done? Um, you know, they're there for you to get around in mobility and what do these things cost? Some of them don't cost very much, 3, four, 5, $10,000. Some of them are a whole new bathroom or an addition or putting in an elevator if you have a two-story home. I've done that before. We'll talk about that coming up. But what are the some of the things that you can do? Um, accessible features and they're becoming standard these days that we're doing a lot of them. Planning ahead is important, right? Versus crisis management where now all of a sudden I have an issue and I have a two-story home and there's no shower on the main floor. Okay, I can't go upstairs. My husband can't go upstairs. We're stuck. I have to put him downstairs in the dining room. What is that going to look like? So those are the kind of things that we can do ahead of time to be prepared for that. Uh do it a lot so that if you can't go upstairs and an elevator doesn't make a lot of sense, maybe a main floor addition or converting some existing main floor space to a bedroom and a bathroom would be a good idea. So doing it ahead of time, preparing for it, deciding that that's something that's important. Um one of the things like that assisted living stuff, right? Those can be 4 5 6 8 9 $10,000 a month if you have to go somewhere um versus having someone come into your home. That's another thing that we've done and do more and more of these days is that we will set up a separate like an ADU even or an on suite kind of thing so that if you have to have someone move into your home for that more constant care that you have a place that they can go to be their own and be there all the time if you need that kind of help. So, um that's another way to do it. And these the return on these modifications is significant. Um people are looking for this. It's very popular. So, this is not money that you're just spending. This is more money that you are investing and improving and increasing the value of your place because the next person might be looking for the same thing as well and it could become more valuable for them.
aging in place and or dealing with uh a handicap situation where you have a mobility problem. I did a project one time for a family. Uh this has been a few years back. This was in Seattle and the man was a dual amputee. He had lost both his legs um around the knee area and their home was four or five steps up to get into the main floor and then it was the bedrooms were up on the upper second floor and they just didn't have a way to get him in out of the house well at all. And so what we did was we put in a lift outside that only went up the four or five steps that he could roll up to. You've seen these these wheelchair lifts to get you up three or four, five, six steps uh at a commercial facility or something like that if you need to get in. Um we put in a lift to get him into the house. Um and then we put in an elevator. We actually retrofitted an elevator to this home that went three floors. It went into the basement, main floor, and then uh up to the second floor. And we had to put an addition of dormer on the back side of the roof because the roof was very pitchy. So, we had to expand the roof up on the back side for room for the elevator shaft to go in. Retrofitted the elevator into the house for them. And then we also redid the bathroom. And we redid the kitchen. And he was in a wheelchair full-time obviously. So, we the kitchen was fully accessible. Like, he could roll up to the sink. There was nothing under the sink, so he could work at the sink. Um, we did a cooktop the same way, so he could roll up to the cooktop and cook there. he liked to cook and be in the kitchen. Um, and it was just a lifechanging event for them in terms of being able to live in that home and make use of that space. Um, and maximize the enjoyment after we got done with that. And that was really great. And it was and she was so happy that he could get in and out. And she was a tiny little lady and couldn't carry this man up the stairs at all. And so this really really made a difference. and they were able to stay in the home that they'd been in for the prior 40 years. So, that was really really important and life-changing. I also have put done multiple elevators. Um did one in a D ADU that we built a separate DADU building and mom moved in, not my mom, the person's mother moved into the upstairs area and though she was very mobile and you know could get around no issues at all. But when we built it, because she was going to live on the second floor and the lower level was all garage and shop and that kind of thing. But we did put an elevator in that so that at some point down the road if she were to get into a situation where her mobility wasn't good, that she couldn't navigate the stairs, there was an elevator ready to go. Um, I put one in my parents' home uh when they moved into their retirement home, the final home for them, and we did a total rena. We put in um an elevator there, a three-top elevator for all three floors of that place. And they're less expensive than you might think they are. These are not $200,000 investments if you're not making them gigantic and hauling freight and things like that if it just needs to be big enough for a couple of people, a person in a wheelchair kind of thing or with a walker. Um they're not bananas expensive. They can be pretty reasonable. You know, 20 15 $20,000 a stop is how they think about those. Is it two floors? Is it three floors? Um, which is the common thing we do is a two or three. We don't have a lot of four or fives uh around here, but if you're on a hill, you might have four floors and an elevator can be done. And we have also done where we haven't actually put in the elevator but we have set up the elevator where essentially what we did was we built two closets on top of each other or two spaces that are used as closets initially and but it's designed that an elevator could be retrofitted into take the floor out and it's a shaft two or three stories tall and then they can retrofit in and put the elevator in after the fact everything else is done. That's the hard part is the shaft and the well for the bottom of the elevator and the roof cuz the equipment is taller than the ceiling is that we've pre-planned those in a number of projects and not actually put the elevator in at the time of the project, but then gone back and retrofit the elevator back in. So, that would be a way that you can get ready for a long-term application without necessarily having to spend the money for the elevator right now out of the gate. So that would be a way to do it is uh does that preparation work for it to set up for the elevator but not put it in now. So that's that's something now in general talking about it. So what is it referred to? So you hear two common things there is ADA or ADA compliance or ADA compliant and then there's universal design and kind of aging in place. Those are sort of the three things that you hear. Now, ADA is the Americans with Disabilities Act, and that was a law that was passed in the '9s to make places accessible and things more accessible for people who have some limitations. And that was when you started seeing ramps uh on sidewalks and that you didn't have to go off the curb, so you could roll off of a sidewalk. grab bars and uh universal design um bathrooms for large space so you could get in with grab bars and elevators and things like that. And even to the point some things that are ADA measured are there is a rule about how many footpounds of pressure it takes to turn on a valve on a shower or a faucet or a door handle that they have to be ADA compliant if they want the ADA compliant moniker. that there are rules about how hard that can be to turn. Um, grab rails have rules about how big they can be and where they are and things like that. So, there's a lot of stuff in and around ADA which isn't necessarily specifically targeted for aging in place or universal design down the road. It's more a compliance for accessibility for people who have limitations whether they're old or young. And so there's the ADA component. And then universal design is the term we use for a space that is accessible for people that have mobility, whether it's a a walker or a wheelchair or a can, you know, some type of mobility restriction that you might have or use of limb type of restriction. Universal design kind of covers that. Um, and then aging in place is really kind of the same thing. It's another way to say it, but we're thinking long term with the aging in place component is what can we do to make this easier? Whether we do it now or whether it's something that we're setting up for down the road that you can then come back like put the elevator in after the fact. So, universal design ADA is Americans with Disability Act compliance. There's technical rules that manufacturers have to follow to meet the ADA guidelines. And then there are things that we do that we put in there for you to whether they're now or whether it's down the road. So some practical examples of that are doorway widths. How wide is the doorway if I'm going through with a walker or I'm in a wheelchair um you know getting in and out of spaces. Uh is this an example? A standard normal bedroom door width. Most of the doors inside a home, um, at least here in this part of the world and in most parts of America, I think, are 30 in or 2'6 as we would refer to it as a 26 door, a 30-in door. Whereas like your front door, your main door to your home or possibly the door from the garage to the house, those more entry point doors tend to be 36 in or 3 foot wide doors. So, you've got a much wider opening. And we don't very often put 36 inch wide doors inside a house. That's not common. 30 in and even smaller than 30 inch like a closet door might be smaller or a bathroom door. Really commonly it's not it's not uncommon at all to see a 28 in or a 2'4 as we would refer to it. A 28 in door going into a bathroom. That's pretty tight. That's pretty tight. It's going to be hard to get through that with a walker or someone in a wheelchair. particularly if you're doing it yourself and you have to put your hands on the outside of the chair to drive yourself in there. So 32in wide doors or 36 is even more roomy is is doorway width and traffic space for you to get around. Um flooring uh carpet is a little bit more difficult to get around on whether it's with a walker or a cane or a wheelchair unless it's motorized but even then it's you know a little bit more drag on a motorized wheelchair. Um, so the flooring material, the door width, counter height is important or I am I working on the counter now that I'm seated versus standing, right? And I'm addressing this counter, then we may want to change the counter height. Um, even to the point where if multiple people are using it, we have done and there is equipment out there where a counter height can be variable. You press the button, a lot of people have seen these desks, right? The standup desk, you can raise and lower the desk. You can do the same for a portion of a kitchen. Raise and lower it. So if someone is working in there that has a mobility issue, is in a chair or something like that, they can lower it. Then person who's not can come press a button, raise the countertop up so it's a more comfortable work height for them. Um, so countertop issues, uh, grab bars, uh, in and around toilets, showers, tubs, things like that, sitting down, getting up, getting out of a tub, getting in a tub. You know, those transition spaces. Bathrooms are tough and they're dangerous because it's wet and it's slippery. So, you really need to be careful and mindful. That's probably the number one space is the is the bathroom and the kitchen would be second. And then just general getting around the house would be the flooring. Is it multiple levels? Are there two stairs down into the family room? Like how are we going to navigate that? Do we put a ramp? What's that going to look like? Maybe we raise it. So those kind of things. And then getting in and out of the house. What's that like? How many steps are there from the garage or from the front yard or to the backyard or whatever the case may be. So those type of things are things to think about. Lighting also kind of a sneaky one that you forget about somewhat and I certainly know that as I have gotten older that I need reading glasses. I can't read the stuff without the glasses. I'm good far away, but I also need light. So, I need light to see things and turn on so that I'm working on something that I can read it better. It makes it easier. So lighting is really important that you don't necessarily want it super bright all the time, but you want to be able to do that when it I need to work on this or read this or see this, but other times I don't. So that there's a layered lighting effect that you would want to do and thinking about task lighting and where are you going to sit and where are you going to work on things and let's make sure that the lighting is appropriate for those spaces and that we really want to think about that. That's important to cover and consider the getting around and the functioning space, right? In and out of space, lighting, those kind of things are really important.
I guess one of the design philosophy ways to think about it, right, is we want to design for the 80year-old you, but make it beautiful as if it's the 40year-old you that we're doing it for. So, we want it to not be sterile and antiseptic and hospital, you know, senior living kind of care looking. We want it to be your home and have all the style that you want with it, whatever that style may be, but also functional and hide that functionality within the style. So that I think is important as well to still let it be yours and be your thing and what you want it to be and reflect your style and how you want to live, but make it safe and make it so that you can be in that home long term and what are the things we need to do to integrate that functional component with the styling component. So that's really important. Um, bathrooms. Let's dive in specifically to bathrooms because it is, I think, the the number one place. And something that's happened now, not now, but in the recent years, is that everybody knows if you've had a shower, right, there's a curb. You have to step into the shower. And getting over that curb, depending on your mobility, for a lot of us, is really not a problem. But if you have some limited mobility or you need a walker, some assistance, a chair or something, that curb can be a challenge or a slip hazard. So what has developed in the last 10 or 15 years are becoming much more prominent is no curb shower, right? So there is no curb that you have to step up to get into is that it just runs flat and the drain is there. So curbless showers are super um available and not that big a deal in most cases. They can be if they get huge or we're retrofitting it. It can be a little bit more complicated to do it, but it can be done. Uh definitely something from a real futurep proofing if you think there's going to be the possibility of a mobility issue. And they just look cool, too, by the way. I mean, they look great and they're kind of we put a linear drain. Everyone's seen these linear drains, right? long drain as opposed to the single point drain where all of the floor has to slope to this. If we put in the linear drain way at the back, then all the floor slopes evenly to that drain just a little bit and it makes it safer when you're in there. Another thing in a shower is a seat, being able to sit down, grab bars so that you can get up and down. Some people want a permanently built-in seat so the shower gets a little bigger and the seat is always there. Some people want us to attach a fold down seat to the wall. Some people don't want anything like that and they just want us to make the shower big enough so that they can get a bench or a chair, aluminum or wood combination plastic thing that they just want to put in the shower if they need it. Okay, that works too. Um, whatever is the right thing for you. But again, with the grab bars now, do we put the grab bars in right now? And maybe not. Maybe you don't need those. But what we would do, what we would recommend and the way we like to do it is we will design the grab bar pattern so that we know where they're going to go because you need, surprisingly, you need the ones that are horizontal for here, but the one that goes vertical so you can grab it up high and pull yourself up uh is important in terms of what the grabar configuration is. And so when we're planning that, we know what that grabbar configuration is. Whether we're putting it in now, right now out of the gate, or we're going to wait and we don't have to put it in for five or 10 years, but there is a plan. And we have put the backing, what we refer to as backing in the wall where the plates are going to be that that grab bar is going to be screwed to the wall. So that whenever it is you install that that when you drill the holes and you put that thing in that that those screws are going into solid wood, not into drywall or not into tile or anything like that. So we want to plan for that. We do the same thing when it comes to towel bars. in fact that we put backing in for where the towel bars are going to go. So we're not screwing that towel bar to just drywall and a kid comes along and yanks that towel off and boom, the towel bar comes ripping down. So it's really important on a grab bar scenario. So we want to make sure that we've thought that out. Um, another one, okay, this is one that surprising kind of sneaks in under the radar, but the height of the seat of a toilet, right? It used to be they were real low and and that was just kind of the height of seats. I don't even know what the number was is 14 or 15 inches. Much lower than the standard height of the seat of a chair. Uh which is around 16 to 18 in typically. Now like some chairs adjust of course like the you know desk chair I'm sitting in here. Some go up and down but they don't. If you just go measure a chair at your kitchen table, I think you would find typically the height of that seat from the floor is around 17 or 18 in. But for people with mobility issues, sometimes that's too low. That's too much of a deep knee bend to get down to that level and then get up from that. So what happened in the industry is after ADA um the law was passed, one of the first things that happened was that what's referred to as the comfort height toilet was introduced by toilet manufacturers and that is the seat of the toilet is just higher off the floor. Now, you probably have seen if you have grandma or whatever years ago that they would have a toilet seat that would be like three inches thick to effectively do that to raise it up so they didn't have to sit down as much. But now, the comfort height toilet has been developed. And in most cases these days, most of the toilets we install, whether people need that or not, is the comfort height. That's the most popular. Unless we're doing it specifically in a little kids bathroom, then we tend to go with a standard where it's going to be a children in a bathroom or using a bathroom for a long time. But most adult bathrooms, we're always putting in the comfort height as a standard thing. Much easier to get up and down. Um the first time my dad came to my house after we did the renovation and I put all comfort height toilets in and he was like, "Oh, I love the height of this. This is great. This is easy. This is so cool." So, that does make a difference and it's only a couple of inches, but you'd be surprised how much difference those couple inches can make. Um, and then the decorative options, the lighting, you know, those kind of things. We don't want them to look medical and sterile. They can be stylish but functional as well. So, yeah. So, we've got the comfort height toilets. Talked about that. uh knee space underneath a vanity if you need to go up. If you really have some issues or you want a chair, whether you're in a chair all the time for mobility or you just want to be able to sit down, then we can create a knee space in a bathroom for you to get ready um and and have that so you can get right up to it as opposed to having to go sideways. And then of course countertop height as well. Um cost on these, right? So, bathrooms, one of the most expensive spaces that one can get into when you're talking about a full renovation. So, that would be uh from a per square foot standpoint. They're not often terribly big, but the cost per square foot can be very high because it's a high cost concentration space. We've got tile and cabinets and countertops and plumbing fixtures and lighting fixtures and mirrors and all this stuff. All these dollars stacked on top of each other in terms of a per square foot standpoint. Most bathrooms for us, small bathrooms are, you know, 20,000 to 30 or 40 or 50,000 if they're smaller and, you know, less well-appointed. Uh, master bathrooms can start in 40, 50, 60,000 and can go to sky's the limit. I've done primary master bathrooms for $200,000, but that's just because people wanted to get some really cool stuff. You do not have to spend that kind of money at all, but you certainly can. Um, so bathroom expense, are we doing the whole bathroom to make it fully compliant or are we just doing the shower? Are we just doing the vanity or what are we doing? We widening the doorways. Um, so it ranges a little bit, but most bathroom renovations, I would think, kind of start if we're doing a more full bathroom, 25 or 30 to up to 60 or 80 would be here in the Seattle area market that we are. Um, that's what they can cost. I'm not sure what they cost in other parts of the world, but that's what they cost here in our part of the world. Uh, we just have a very high labor coefficient in Seattle. So, that's something to be aware of. But that bathroom design, shower, curbless, tubs, right? If you like tub, if you need a tub, uh, those can be really difficult to get in and out of. Um, they do make the ones with the doors, um, so they're easier to get in and get out. The only downside to those that I've heard about is because the door typically opens in so it doesn't leak is you have to drain the tub while you're still in it. Most people don't do that. Most of the time you just get out of the tub and then you drain it. But if you're in one of those with the door, you got to drain it before you can get out. So that's the only comment on those that I've really heard. Um is whether it's a big deal or not. But those tubs you have to be careful. Those can be very difficult to get in and out of. I've done stairs with handles and grab bars and things like that. People that really want tubs, but I would caution you against the tub. That's a spot for slips, falls, that kind of thing. But if you need it, um, so price ranging, again, emergency retrofit, you have an issue or an incident and now I have to make this bathroom compliant, it's going to cost more to do it right now. I have an issue with my mom. Oh my gosh, what are we going to do? Right? So if that's a thing, planning ahead always makes that a little bit easier.
The next thing, the next most discussed space about uh compliance or ADA universal aging in place kind of thing is the kitchen. Of course, as you have to cook, unless you're going to have somebody coming in or bringing stuff to you all the time, is that you need to be able to work and function in your kitchen. Um counter height becomes a thing. Um, are we adjusting that for you in a chair? Do you need accessible? So, the the counter type, the counter height options. Um, a lot of pull out shelving things come right out to you. Um there are even um some applications that we've done where in a wall cabinet the the wall cabinet the cabinet that's up above the countertop if you're even a vertically challenged person or particularly if you're in a chair we've done these where there are systems that you can buy that go inside that you reach up when you open the door and then you can pull down and the entire shelving assembly rolls down for access accessibility for you and then you can push it right back up and then close the doors so it goes away. Um, so ways to get that stuff out, even down to the type of handle that you put on the cabinet. If there's an arthritis thing, some people have hard time grabbing and and the finger dexterity goes down over time that something's easy to grab and open. Uh, thinking about that again, lighting, right? uh being able to see, read a recipe, read something on there, uh know what you're hap, what's happening around you, cleanliness, things like that. Lighting, super important. Um accessible storage, again, of course. Uh and then technology now, right? This is important. Um I don't know if you're old enough to remember back in the day, there was a an ad on TV a long long time ago. Uh you wear like a necklace and press it and like, "Oh, help. I've fallen and I can't get up." Right? That was the early part of some of that connected technology to help people in their home. Now, we are well past the little medallion that you have to wear around, but that might still be a good idea because it's always with you type of thing. But cameras and voice activated technology, things that you can get to help you do stuff, running the temperature and all of that type of stuff can be done or notifications on things that you need to do. uh change your water filter, back flush your hot water heater, you know, those kind of things that people can help you with that the technology can be important and how can we make this easier for us or make it easier for my mom, you know, in her place, at her house, or whether she's coming to your house. So, those are important smart appliances, things to be safe, um so that, you know, people aren't going to leave the iron on, for example, right? we can be aware of that that the iron doesn't you know caution about fire those type of things. So that's important design strategies that we can use. Islands with the knee spaces, side byside refrigerators or bottom freezers, you know, don't want to put stuff up high, multiple refrigerators or freezers, so things are low. Um, different workspace heights if you've got someone who needs a lower one, a higher one. So those kind of things. So kitchens are important, the the cooking, the cleaning, the countertop prep space, right? even little things about where's the garbage, where's the recycling going, how easy it is for me to get to that. Um, a big trend that we're doing now, not again just for from a mobility standpoint, is that you can put um push to touch or touch to open drawers even like you can just bump the drawer and it will open up. If someone's got a strength issue or a grab issue, instead of pulling that drawer open, they can just bump it and it will open for them. and then they can just give it a light gentle push and then it'll close itself. Um, so that's a thing. A lot of drawers down low. You don't have to grab those. So drawers um and integrated stuff for that can help a lot. Um, so kitchens, bathrooms overall. The next thing I wanted to talk about was the entrances. Getting in and the house. We touched this a little bit, touched on this a little bit, but it's important like, okay, once I'm in the house, I can get around and I can use my stuff and I can get from this space to that space and I can go to the bathroom and take a shower and take a bath and make a meal and do some laundry perhaps, right? So, those are important, but then what about getting in the house, right? Getting in the house or getting into the backyard. Maybe the backyard is a place I like to go or how do we do that? Right? So, what are the thoughts? And you see ramps, right? You see the people that have retrofitted ramps to their home uh to get in and out. Uh my neighbor has one. In fact, I was just by there yesterday and kind of looking at their ramp. It's really long. Um and it's important that the slope ratio, if you need a ramp, then there's not a way to get around it, but the slope ratio is really important that you don't want that to be more than like 1 to 16. 1 to 20 is better. And by that, what I mean is that it goes up one inch in 16 to 20 inches of run. So, it's a slight slope. So, it's easy to push up if you're trying to push somebody up the ramp or drive yourself up the ramp or crank yourself up the ramp. If it's steep, it can be impossible. So, that slope angle is really important.
the access to the house, ramps, whether they're in the garage, do you park in your garage? Do you park in the driveway? What's the best way to get you in or to get you out? What if the backyard? So, um the to get you into the backyard to go hang out or sit out back or whatever the case may be. And then another one is the threshold right on the door itself. Um, all exterior doors have some type of threshold that we're trying to make it weathertight, weather resistant. And there are some that are very big and bulky that if you're trying to get a wheelchair over could be really difficult or if you're trying to navigate it with a cane or a walker or just a little bit unsteady on your feet and you've got to make that clear step to get over that thing is that there are ADA thresholds that are much lower threshold and easier to get over or to you know get past or through. So, that would be something to think about, just potentially changing the front door or changing the back door. Now, the ones that are very easy to navigate typically don't have the same amount of of weather resistance or sealing against wind and cold transmission as the ones that are more complicated and big and bulky. But probably a reasonable exchange or tradeoff for a much easier access to the home to give back a few tiny percentages or decimal points of insulation value or air tightness or something like that if it's going to be much safer to get in and out of. But the thresholds are important. The doorways again are important, but most exterior doors are okay sized. Um they're typically 3 feet or so. So, the exterior door generally isn't a problem other than the threshold. The width typically isn't a problem. It's the threshold that can often be the problem. So, that one is something to think about. um all the hardware throughout the house, all the door handles. If we're going to change the doors from the little round ones that might be hard to grab or you have to apply a certain amount of pressure to to grip and then turn versus a lever style where you just click and I'm done. Here I'm able to do that. But if I have to grab that round thing, create that pressure and hold it and twist it and then open or close, that can be a problem. So, lever handles were really developed as part of ADA versus just the straight round knob. So, something to think about. Let's see what else we got in the notes here. Right. Again, lighting, motion sensors, um, can help if people get into some trouble, have an issue. The cameras, you can, you know, say, "Hey, Amazon or whatever, you know, Google, what, call my son, call my daughter, dial 911." Make sure those kind of things are set up or easy to implement when you need them. Uh, call 911, that type of thing. I need some help. Obviously, you have to be able to talk to do that, but that kind of accessibility is important. Stairs, if you're going to do the stairs, make sure there's railings on both sides. Make sure they're sturdy if they're really going to be using those. Um, there are stair lifts that you can do where that'll wrap around and you can retrofit those. Um, one of my other neighbors has one of those. Um, so that you can get up and down the stairs. We put a stair lift in his place uh for him and he uses that. He loves it. Helps him get up and down. Lives two stories. Bedroom, kitchen, everything upstairs. His office where he spends all his time is downstairs in his laundry. He's a widowerower. He hangs out there. I'm with him a lot checking on him. My wife and I were kind of help him a good bit and keeping an eye on him. but he's in his mid to late 80s and he's still in that house by himself. Does have some people come in. No one lives there or anything like that, but we're constantly checking on him and his house is kind of set up for it. So, he's in pretty good shape. So, we talked about the stairs, the lifts get you in and out if you need it or the ramp on that 16 to1 20 to1 ratio. Um, just make sure that you've got the adequate slope and not a ramp like this. that's not going to really do you much good unless someone's lugging you in for that or you're going to get someone in there. Um the next thing I guess I would say is a little bit more on the smarthome uh aging in place type of thing. So you can voice control lights, you know, hey, turn on the light in the kitchen, turn on this and particularly have a mobility issue. Now the switch is right over there and that's pretty convenient. But if I'm here and I'm working and I need another light, if the light switch isn't right here and I have to go somewhere to interact with that, how great is it to be able to just say, "Hey, so and so, turn on the light at the island, turn on the kitchen sink light, turn on this, whatever the case may be, and they can be turned on and off, or set them to just turn themselves off down the road." So that voice activated system is really good. medical alerts. Now, they will do fall detection even that they can the system can tell you fallen. Um, doorbells, obviously, a video doorbell that if someone comes to your door, rings the doorbell, you don't necessarily have to walk all the way over to wherever the door is to open it and figure out who's there. Plus, that's kind of hard. And from a security standpoint that you can interact with whomever's there without ever having to open the door. So, there's a a higher security feature there by not having to open the door to figure it out. The video doorbell and you don't even have to get out of your chair or wander across the house to figure out what that's all about. Who is it? The video doorbell. Smart locks, right? Don't have to fumble with a key, right? That can be difficult if I have hand issues, a little bit of mobility issues, you know, I have the the the shakes and I can't get the key in. You can do smart locks, press in the button, you can do a fingerprint. There's all kinds of ways to make that stuff a little bit easier. Medication reminders. Oh, you need to do your medication and here's the reminder for that. All kinds of different ways to do that. Health monitoring, of course, you can wear your watch or your thing or whatever to send messages to your family or to your doctor or whomever the case may be. So, we're lucky in the time that we live in the technology that we've developed to help us do this and be in our homes longer and be safer and and feel good about it and your family feel good about my mom is okay. She's doing her thing. And if anything goes wrong or happens, I'm going to get notified. I'm going to know. So, it's peace of mind for you. It's peace of mind for them. But, you have to integrate those things. you have to do because these houses aren't built like that. You know, some now are getting that way, but if yours isn't, these things can be added. And so, that's the tradeoff. That's the question. That's the thing. How much would it take? How complicated would it be? How long would it be for us to do some modifications to our house so we can be here longer? We can be here longer, more safely. We can be here longer with peace of mind. our kids can have some peace of mind to know that they can talk to us almost at any time. Pop in on the thing with the camera. Hey mom, how's it going? Are you okay? What's happening? Or if you need some help, you can get it with just your voice. Camera can come on, see how you're doing. So that's a great thing that we have available for us in our society today to help you be in those places and do that longer and more comfortably and much more affordably as well. much cheaper to do that than it is to go someplace where you have to be monitored 24 hours a day and you're not in your home and all of that kind of thing. Everybody gets that. But these are some of the things you can do to make that part of life and living in the home much easier, much less stressful, much more enjoyable, and not necessarily at huge expense. Now, if we're redoing the kitchen and the bathroom and putting in an elevator and a thing outside, yeah, these can turn into big renovation projects. No question about it. But you don't necessarily have to do them all. You do the ones that are the most important or the ones that are going to be the most impactful for you. Like the one I talked about where we put the elevator and the lift in for the guy. Just get like we didn't even have to do the kitchen or the bathroom and it would have been a game changer for them. But they were in a position that they could do it all. And it was a mega gamecher. But just getting in and out of the house without having to get some help or him to do it on his own, going backwards up the stairs kind of thing because his wife couldn't help him. Massive game changer. So lots of little things that you can do um to to make it easier.
So now we've talked about the things you can do, the things that are out there as options and what we should do. What does all this stuff cost and how do we pay for it? Right? So what can we do to fund this? Obviously you can pay cash. You can do a home equity line of credit. There are um Medicaid things sometimes that the insurance will pay for this if you need that. That I need the doctor to write me a prescription for a hot tub kind of thing. and that some people's insurance or Medicaid will cover or offset or pay for a part of some of those things. Uh my one neighbor next door, he's a vet. So some of the stuff that he's getting that we're doing like the stairlift thing, that was a VA thing for him cuz he's on disability from being uh in, you know, in the military. And so they did that. They provided that. I put it in for him, but essentially they gave it to him or gave it to him at a really low cost. But that's the kind of thing that other people can help fund some of this stuff. There are resources out there for you. Um area agencies, local grants. Um I know that the Master Builders Association here in greater Seattle, uh King and Snomish County, they do annually a really cool outreach program that's called Rampathon where they find people that are in need. And if you know anybody, contact the Master Builders Association of King and Snomish County. um people that need wheelchair ramps to get into their house. We will go out and we will provide and build the ramps for people that need those that can't afford them otherwise. And so programs like that, like we can come do that. That can be a thing. Um so how do we do it? Home equity line loans, all that's possible. We can talk to you about that, too. um if you're not in a position to be able to pay for that or advocate for some help with Medicaid, insurance, the VA, any number of places. Um so that's ways to get those funded. When to do this, right? If you know you're going to be here and we're thinking about this long term, then the sooner the better, right? That it's already done. We don't have to pay for it. Doesn't become an emergency. So those are always the earlier the better that we get that covered. And then ROI, return on investment. Now, a lot of people that I talk about with that we'll do this and I'm working with a couple right now. We're they're building a new home and this is going to be their last home. That's their plan that this is it. This is the one, our retirement place. It's next to the kids and the grandkids. And so, we're incorporating a lot of this stuff already. Um, and they kind of jokingly said, "We don't really care what the return on investment is because when this house gets sold, we're going to be gone and the kids will have to figure it out." But there is obviously a real component to that. You can't just be, you know, a flippant about it really, but because that'll be part of the legacy is that we can then sell this house or the kids can move in and it's got value. And so these things are part of that is what's the return? What am I doing to benefit the value of my asset, right? And it's going to typically be worth more because people are looking for those as the population continues to age that those kind of things are more and more sought after. So there's real value in those
common mistakes, how to avoid them. Waiting until the crisis hits, right? That's obviously one. Just wait and now it's an emergency. focusing only on the current needs versus future proofing or long-term thinking. Um, choosing institutional looking solutions versus something that's stylish. I would caution against that. I mean, you can do that and they tend to be a little bit less expensive often, but it's not that much more difficult or that much more money to make it functional, but yet stylish. um underestimating the future tech needs and how technology can change and can be less expensive to help like even the the voice control lighting is a gamecher for a lot of people to not have to get up and go turn on a light. That one and the doorbell stuff and being able to just talk to someone without having to get up. So, that type of thing is important. Grab bars, counter heights, again, doorways, step entries, all important things to worry about. Okay. future trends and innovations. So AI, everybody knows about AI, heard about AI, whether you're deep into AI or just have a vague sense of it, it's going to continue to evolve and what it can do for you. So as long as the framework is there to capitalize on some of that as that improves and becomes more user friendly, I mean maybe who knows, one day everybody's going to have a robot in the house with them. I don't know. The Jetsons will be here. I don't know about that. I don't know if I will live long enough to see that, but I think that might be a thing. Be interesting to see, but we're not there yet. So, in the meantime, what can we do to set ourselves up prior to that or to set up mom and dad and be more comfortable with them there? So that AI powered health monitoring, robotic assistance down the road, um fall detection, tele medicine, you know, the integrating the TV right here so that I can with voice command t change my news channel to the internet so I can do a zoom call and get my daughter on the phone and tell her I need some help or ask her a question or whatever the case may be. So that kind of integrated stuff is really important in thinking about that. I guess that's kind of the the run that I've got here, the notes, the things that I wanted to talk about. Um, so key takeaways, aging in place, universal design, ADA, we want to be in our house as long as possible. My mom and dad want to be in their house as long as possible. What can we do? And I would say this list is a pretty good list to start with, things to think about. But start planning now or thinking about it. If this is the house that's going to be that, then what can we do now? we're already thinking about that bathroom, so let's do the bathroom and consider it for the long term. Um, I mean, if you're 35, you're probably not a huge issue that you're going to need that unless you have some conditions now that you need to deal with. There's plenty of those people that, you know, are in a chair or have mobility issues no matter what age they are. And so, we need to accommodate them. But if it's really just an aging thing, are we in that mode right now or not? Technology professional, you got to get someone to help you with this. this is not something you want to embark on your own. Um there are designations um a certified aging in place specialist. That's a thing. You can be a certified aging in place specialist. We have them here that can help you and know all of the rules and the tips and the tricks and the hacks to make that really uh effective and be real and not just be something. There's rules about that and we can help you with that. Um and it's an investment that is going to pay off. It's going to pay off in real dollars. It's going to pay off in convenience. It's going to pay off in usability. It's going to pay off in how long you can stay in the house um and use it and not be too worried. So, um something to think about. It makes a difference. Um so, if you need it, let's do it, right? Important things to think about long term. It's not fun. You know, who wants to plan their own funeral? No one. But it's responsible part of being an adult. And so, how can we help you make that part of living in a home as comfortable and easy and affordable as possible long term so you can be there, be where you're comfortable, be where you want to be long term. So, that's what I wanted to talk about today on aging in place and ADA and universal design, all of those different things falling under one thing. Um, if you're interested, give us a call, check us out. Lot more information and topics on our YouTube channel, our website. If you're local, come in showroom, check us out. We'll have somebody come out to your house, no charge, talk to you about what's available, what your options are, what your needs are, whether they're now needs or later needs, and kind of walk you through that and help you understand what your options are and start some of that planning and budgeting. And if the time is right and this is it, even get into actual design and, you know, let's go do a project. Or maybe it's just finding out and doing a little bit of homework so you're educated for down the road when you're ready. And if it isn't the house, maybe it's the next one. You know, let us know. We'll catch you on that one. So that's it. Thank you very much, Charlie. Armada Design and Build. Let's build with Armada podcast. Our first solo podcast. Thanks Josh back there. Hey, appreciate it. Um I guess that's it. We'll see you guys in the next one. Like, subscribe, rate, and review. Leave a comment, send us a note. What is something you'd like us to talk about more, dive into a little bit more where you want to learn some stuff? Is it funding? Is it design? Is it whatever the case may be, let us know. And if it's going to be a good topic, we'll do it. All right. Thank you. See you in the next one.