Building a new PPOR – factoring in some elements of Adaptable Living by choice

We are building our (hopefully) final home this year on our rural block. The builder I am using has been a local leader in the adaptable living space for many years, long before the advent of NDIS (stems from his personal experience of raising a severely disabled daughter). My background is that of a part-time developer but I have certainly learned a lot from our meetings with him.

We are an able-bodied couple (early 50s) but have decided to incorporate quite a few adaptable living aspects into our own new home – not because of any immediate need, nor am I chasing any aspect of government reward, but more as future-proofing a result of conversations with this impressive builder fellow. Eg it doesn’t really cost a lot more to make doors and hallways just a little bit wider than standard, when you are building from scratch. We are going for a single-level brick veneer and the site is my favourite place in the world. The idea being if something happened health-wise to one of us we won’t need to find a new home in a hurry, we can stay where we are. Also we both have aging parents living by themselves elsewhere, and we have a teenager who is showing no affinity for leaving home as a young adult, so multigenerational living is a distinct possibility for us going forward.
The builder tells me that around 2/3rds of our home design will qualify as being adaptable if we were to ever submit it for assessment. The main trick we have done is to make our double garage wider than standard, with that room having multiple external windows (like a living area) and a sliding glass door for separate entry other than the remote door entry. That room also has a wheelchair friendly wet room (bathroom) coming straight off it. (We will still have 2 other standard bathrooms in the main part of the home). There are no jump-ups / lips to any of the entry points to the home, again just another small wheelchair-friendly aspect that doesn’t cost much apart from a bit of forward thinking. Basically if push comes to shove that garage room could easily convert to a roomy, adaptable granny flat. Just needs a kitchenette added. It could also just as easily convert to an Air-BNB self-contained flat as farm-stays are a bit of a profitable pursuit in our area from what I can tell ($150/night?) which could earn us a few dollars in retirement down the track.

Anyway – moral of the story is for those doing new builds – why not give consideration to at least some aspects of adaptable living for your single level dwelling ? – it can open up a whole world of possibilities for the future in a bunch of different ways. And it doesn’t cost a lot if you get the work done up-front. Aside from the whole NDIS issue, there are plenty of families looking for this sort of thing as a home to live in when you are ready to sell or rent out. Cheers FM.

 

Makes a ton of sense and I agree. I'm about to undergo a basic renovation, which involves turning a garage that was turned into a room back into a garage. But now you've got me thinking; is there some sort of happy medium here? Can I install a garage door that aesthetically looks a bit more like a regular wall in case I want to use it as a room again in the future? I would hate to have to convert it into a room yet again years from now!