[00:00:00] Eric Goranson: It's around the house. And this is a big secret that nobody really talks about when you have those, you know, the, the open the door you see 'em on TV late night, they're selling 'em they look

[00:00:16] Caroline Blazovsky: great. Yeah. My mom got sucked in. She's like, I want one of those. And I'm like, do they leak? I mean, what's the real true story on those things.

[00:00:22] Caroline Blazovsky: They work

[00:00:22] Eric Goranson: well, but here's what you have to worry about one, you know, you've got that door. You need to get a good brand. That's gonna hold up. Cuz yeah, if. Gonna leak. And usually what they do is they have a, a seal there or a seal that inflates kind of, once you get in there, it pressurizes itself and locks itself in there.

[00:00:38] Eric Goranson: So it's good. So that's one thing, but here's the thing that everybody forgets. You need a power drainer. When it comes to remodeling and renovating your home, there is a lot to know the, we got you covered. This is around the house. Welcome to around the house with Eric G and Caroline B York one. [00:01:00] Stop shop for home improvement.

[00:01:01] Eric Goranson: How you doing today, Caroline? Hello

[00:01:04] Caroline Blazovsky: everybody. How are you doing?

[00:01:06] Eric Goranson: Good. I thought this was a great topic for us today, cuz we both feel like we're getting.

[00:01:16] Caroline Blazovsky: Are you saying we're aging in place?

[00:01:19] Eric Goranson: Everybody is right. That's the only constant that moves. We're all just kind of aging at the same rate day by day. I'll tell

[00:01:26] Caroline Blazovsky: you what, when you have like, and I'm feeling it from having a car accident and now having bad shoulders, you feel it. And it makes you realize real quickly.

[00:01:36] Caroline Blazovsky: Like you might

[00:01:36] Eric Goranson: need help. Yeah. Yeah. So today it's gonna be one of those discussions. I thought this is gonna be great. Cuz we can talk about it. Whether you're not you're building a new house, you're remodeling or maybe, you know, you you've got grandma moving in or, or you're moving in with grandma or whatever it is.

[00:01:52] Eric Goranson: Just trying to help parents.

[00:01:53] Caroline Blazovsky: Yeah. Our older parents

[00:01:55] Eric Goranson: moving in. Oh yeah. You know, and, and these multi-generational households are in [00:02:00] right now. Lot of people are doing that the same way,

[00:02:02] Caroline Blazovsky: very popular, very popular.

[00:02:04] Eric Goranson: So one of the things, you know, my parents thought I had, we, I grew up in a house like at 1972 house that had like seven levels.

[00:02:12] Eric Goranson: Cause I had three. You know, three brothers, so there's four of us, but they weren't floors. They were levels, you know, where you had the, the half, the living room that was down six steps, bedroom. That was up nine. They were all kind of offset in a split kind of thing. You know what I mean? Yeah. And so it wasn't good for my parents aging because we had all these different staircases.

[00:02:34] Eric Goranson: We had 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 different sets of stairs in the house. Ouch. So that was tough. It

[00:02:44] Caroline Blazovsky: makes my bones hurt. That's a lot of

[00:02:45] Eric Goranson: climbing. It is for any age. Yeah. So when my parents sold that house, we designed a house that would help them age in place. And one of the first things we did, which I'm so happy was we designed the front of the house.

[00:02:58] Eric Goranson: So there wasn't any [00:03:00] stairs, so they could go from the driveway or even the garage right up in a gentle slope and get in the front door. But not like a

[00:03:11] Caroline Blazovsky: ramp. Is it like a ramp?

[00:03:13] Eric Goranson: No. You can't even tell when you grow up to the house, it just seems like it's a nice general walkway up to the house. It's not that high, you know, the that's nice.

[00:03:21] Eric Goranson: The, the garage is only just, you know, 10 floor. There's only about 10 inches. You have to go down to get that, you know, it's like the difference between your garage floor in your house, you know, that kind of foot that you have there when you step into a garage, it's about that distance. And so you, when you do a winding walkway, you don't even notice.

[00:03:40] Eric Goranson: So that was a huge one because later on in life, my mom had a Walker. My dad had a Walker mm-hmm and just that there eliminated the worry of steps or having to build some obtrusive ramp up the front that looks like somebody came in and installed her brick, a ramp. That's

[00:03:59] Caroline Blazovsky: what, I'm a ramp. [00:04:00] It always looks like a, and then you say, oh, I know somebody lives there.

[00:04:03] Caroline Blazovsky: You can see it right from the road. People know your business, you know?

[00:04:06] Eric Goranson: Well, and I think also, also it also says, Hey, you know, there might be somebody a little more vulnerable here, go here. You might have, have an old, an old person or somebody that's in their eighties, nineties or older in there that, that, that might be able to not defend themselves correctly.

[00:04:22] Eric Goranson: So I think, I think that, that in some neighborhoods that's not gonna help. A hundred percent. So that's one of the things that I've done. That was really cool. And then, you know, when we designed the house, we, we put in three foot doorways in every room. Nice. And that's something you can do when you're remodeling.

[00:04:39] Eric Goranson: If you're doing that tree model bathroom model, try to slide in as big a door as you can,

[00:04:46] Caroline Blazovsky: especially for bathrooms. And then of course, showers too, where you can do a walk-in mm-hmm . On one level.

[00:04:52] Eric Goranson: Yeah. That's a big one too. The tubs. Yeah. Well, you can do tubs, but you can do the, the, the more of the, the door.

[00:04:59] Eric Goranson: Yeah. The door [00:05:00] tubs, the door inside, you know, and, and let's actually talk about that. We're gonna jump around today a lot. So bear with us. Here's a couple things when you're dealing with those tubs, and this is a big secret that nobody really talks about when you have those, you know, the, the open the door you see 'em on TV late night, they're selling 'em they look

[00:05:17] Caroline Blazovsky: great.

[00:05:18] Caroline Blazovsky: Yeah. My mom got sucked in. She's like, I want one of those. And I'm like, do they leak? I mean, what's the real true story on those things. They work

[00:05:24] Eric Goranson: well, but here's what you have to worry about one, you know, you've got that door. You need to get a good brand. That's gonna hold up, cuz yeah, if not, it's gonna leak.

[00:05:32] Eric Goranson: And usually what they do is they have a. A seal there or a seal that inflates kind of, once you get in there, it pressurizes itself and locks itself in there. So it's good. So that's one thing, but here's the thing that everybody forgets. You need a power drain and they make 'em for it. Cuz here's what happens.

[00:05:51] Eric Goranson: Think about taking a bath, you're taking a tub, you're chilling out. You're having a great time and you're like, all right, time to get out. You get out of the top [00:06:00] on these. You wait, you can. So you have to wait for the water to go all the way down the drain. What happens? You're freaking cold. The time the water gets down, you're cold, you're shivering, you're shivering and, and the, and the walls on these are higher.

[00:06:17] Eric Goranson: So because you've got the seed in there, so they get the water in there a little better. So they're taller. So it's even harder to get out of. So the option that you gotta get with these things is get the power drain kit. So, what that does is, has a little pump. And so when you hit it, it drains faster.

[00:06:37] Eric Goranson: Yeah. Like a condensate pump almost. Yeah. Almost. Yeah. It's almost like that, but it's just, it helps it drain faster. So now you're not waiting like seven minutes for the tub to drain. You're like two minutes. That's a lot better situation. That's a good point.

[00:06:51] Caroline Blazovsky: They make it look so good on TV. Never think about that.

[00:06:54] Caroline Blazovsky: You'd be shivering freezing.

[00:06:56] Eric Goranson: Oh, you for the wine you you're dying. I don't care how warm it is in there. [00:07:00] Especially if you're older, you know, you're getting colder easily. It just doesn't make sense. You're not gonna sit there and what's the blanket next to the tub for? Oh, I gotta wait five minutes for the dang thing to drain.

[00:07:09] Eric Goranson: So I'm gonna wrap up. No, that doesn't work. so that's one of the things, and then here's another trick too. If you're doing a bathroom model, whether or not, if you think you're gonna be there for any length of time, put the blocking in around the bathtub or shower. So you have places down the road to put, grab bars in.

[00:07:27] Eric Goranson: It's just an easy thing. And now we have the luxury of beautiful grab bars, you know, before they look like a cheap motel, six hotel room grab bar, right? Yeah, no, they did. Now you've got stuff that matches the faucet. It's in a, you know, brushed gold. It's got a really cool discussion ring around it. They've got different ones that are, that are more like decorative towel racks, but they actually can hold a person.

[00:07:54] Eric Goranson: My dad

[00:07:54] Caroline Blazovsky: does. He, when he bought his house, when he retired, that's when he wanted, was to have it all like [00:08:00] wheelchair accessible and that he could, in case something happened, he could just be on one level. And have big opening door doors and walk-in showers and it was it's great. Knock wood.

[00:08:10] Eric Goranson: Yeah. And that's smart.

[00:08:12] Eric Goranson: He hasn't had to use it. Yeah. But you know, time says that he probably will at some point, right. I mean, that's just, that's just how it goes. And then one thing, and, and I, I, you know, as my certified kitchen designer, I had to, I had to learn a lot of this stuff and I actually learned it. From the lady that kind of designed this stuff for the AGA ADA, Mary Jo Peterson actually took a bunch of classes from her.

[00:08:33] Eric Goranson: She was kind of the, one of the originals I've heard of her. She's like famous, super. So she was my teacher for this. And you know, it's one of those things before we go out to break here, I wanna talk about you think about what it takes to turn a wheelchair around in a bathroom that is five feet. So think about a five foot circle.

[00:08:54] Eric Goranson: In the middle of that. That's what ADA code is. If you were building an American with [00:09:00] disabilities act bathroom, you have to have a 60 inch circle that is not obstructed within. And most bathrooms go do that. And what if you

[00:09:07] Caroline Blazovsky: can't? No. And what if you can't afford that? Like, what if you're in like a moderate income and you can't afford to have something like that or, or even have that accessible, you're never gonna be able to turn your chair around

[00:09:17] Eric Goranson: in there, I guess, you know, and here's the thing, and I'll say this for residential homeowners, for, you know, people living in the house.

[00:09:24] Eric Goranson: The cool thing with this is you don't have to meet ADA code. It's not like it's a commercial bathroom where you have to have meet that. You just wanna give some space. And when we come back, I wanna talk about that. Some of the tricks that you can do to give yourself a little bit more room, cuz somebody has to be able to get in there with a, with a wheelchair, get over into the toilet and get back out.

[00:09:41] Eric Goranson: That's kind of the big thing. Maybe you don't need to be doing. Circles are out there, but. Let's talk about that. We'll dive into that just as soon as around the house returns now be so hot.[00:10:00]

[00:10:05] Eric Goranson: Welcome back to the round, the house show. Now, Caroline and I are sitting here talking about you. Aging in place and, and creating a space that's good for maybe now or later, whether or not for people with all different abilities. And, uh, Carolyn and I were just joking around here, but she was visualizing me in the last segment talking about having a five foot space for, in a wheelchair.

[00:10:25] Eric Goranson: And I was like, yeah, I used to do that. Cuz I had, you know, Spin out. Yeah. I had my, oh yeah. I had knee surgery, huge knee surgery. So torn ACL. So it was a big, huge deal. And so I was working home improvement store, and this is actually what got me into being a kitchen designer 30 years ago is that pushed me into that.

[00:10:45] Eric Goranson: And. I was in a wheelchair, cuz I got tired of going around and crutches all day at the home improvement store. So I was like, ah, put me in a wheelchair. They're like, well you can't be over there selling doors and windows doing that. I'm like, ah, throw me in kitchen design. I'll I'll design kitchens and I've done it for crutches are

[00:10:58] Caroline Blazovsky: the worst.

[00:10:59] Caroline Blazovsky: We were just saying [00:11:00] like, I can't do crutches to save my life. Like if I tried they're too tall, they're too short. I fall down. I slip on stuff. I'm way better in a wheelchair, like forget crutches.

[00:11:09] Eric Goranson: Ah, I tried to do it, but these were polished. And waxed concrete floors. Oh, I was gonna get a head injury on top of my knee problem.

[00:11:20] Eric Goranson: I got in there like day one. I'm like, yo, no, no. So I literally had a wheelchair in there and I even rented one cuz I, it wouldn't work with my knee being out. So I rented a wheelchair that had the right thing for my knee and I rolled around there for a month in a wheelchair until I could put some weight on it and stuff.

[00:11:37] Eric Goranson: And uh, it really opened my eyes up to really needing stuff because. I'd go to restaurants or something and I'd be rolling around the wheelchair. Like I went to, to, uh, Reno for hot August nights for a car show. During that time got on the plane, got around, great. Went to go to this casino and had to go to the bathroom.

[00:11:58] Eric Goranson: Alright. You [00:12:00] had to go down three steps into the floor to go up three steps. And then there was a ramp that went into the bathroom. He had steps get into the area. I'm like, what am I supposed to do? Like helicopter drop into this floor, cuz there's no ramp. So it was, there was a lot of stuff like that.

[00:12:14] Eric Goranson: That didn't make sense back then, but really what you wanna do is design out a bathroom. If you're trying to plan it ahead where maybe you've got a Walker or a wheelchair, at least be able to give some space where maybe you can get extra space between the, the side of the toilet, neither the bathtub or shower, or the side of the toilet in the vanity.

[00:12:33] Eric Goranson: So maybe there's a space there where somebody could roll the wheelchair up and slide over onto the BA onto the.

[00:12:40] Caroline Blazovsky: Yeah. At least you have some room to do something or have a helper. Right. And they're with you at the wheelchair.

[00:12:47] Eric Goranson: Yeah. So creating that space is, is really big. And, you know, I was talking about the, the access with ramps, one thing that I've learned, and it's cool that I've seen this when you're getting [00:13:00] into this, you know, designing for people with multiple abilities is.

[00:13:06] Eric Goranson: Elevators are becoming much more affordable for people. It used to be all right, I'm gonna spend a half million dollars put an elevator in. No,

[00:13:17] Caroline Blazovsky: I see it a lot more

[00:13:17] Eric Goranson: now. Yeah. So really what I do is when people are designing houses and they're like, well, you know, I got the master bedroom on the, on the top floor.

[00:13:25] Eric Goranson: This is gonna be my forever home. I would always have them design a closet by the stairs. That would go up into the hallway above. And there was a closet on the exact side of things. No utilities, nothing above that. So you now had a place, you could cut the floor out and make that into an elevator shaft and put an elevator in Ms.

[00:13:48] Eric Goranson: March. So we would design it around a specific elevator spec. So down the road, they had a better chance of putting something in there. At least we designed it for a. It just looked like a closet the [00:14:00] rest of the time. And it wasn't that big a deal. You could go in there and put a, and put an elevator in that space and be able to get from the bottom floor to the top floor and be able to do that.

[00:14:09] Caroline Blazovsky: What else can you do? Like, so you can do an elevator, you see the chair lifts, right? The, the ones that go up the stairs, what else is,

[00:14:16] Eric Goranson: yeah. And those are not optimal. I mean, they, they work, but man, they're not pretty.

[00:14:23] Caroline Blazovsky: I guess still stuck to

[00:14:24] Eric Goranson: your banister. Yeah, exactly. They just don't. They just don't look good.

[00:14:28] Eric Goranson: You know what? One of the first steps, if we dial it back, one of the first steps that I do is think about bathroom and kitchen faucets. The rule is, can you turn that faucet on with a closed fist? Hmm. So when you look at a single handle faucet, I can turn it on sideways, do that where you run into a problem is like the cross handle, right?

[00:14:56] Eric Goranson: Mm. Now, if you got that cross handle, I can't do that. [00:15:00] So if I've got hand issues or something like that, that's gonna take something a lot more effort than if I've got group or hand issues. I can do it with a closed fist and with somebody with, you know, a lower level of body control. That can be a big deal just in a faucet handle.

[00:15:19] Caroline Blazovsky: Well, the toilet seats are too, like how about the height of a toilet seat?

[00:15:23] Eric Goranson: I'll I'll, I'll be honest. Every toilet I've designed for the last, probably five years that I've put in, have all been comfort, taller height. That to me should be the new standard, the new way to go. So much easier in the knees. And I know there's people right now that are listen to this that are going, oh, well, you know, if you look at how the Asians do it over there in you, in, in Asia where, you know, the Squatty potty stuff, I get it.

[00:15:53] Eric Goranson: I get it what you're saying. But as far as on your knees and somebody having to get up out of a [00:16:00] chair over to that, it's just a little bit easier than to be six inches lower. I mean, I'm

[00:16:05] Caroline Blazovsky: noticing it now. You know, when I, and I have a lot of damage to my knees. And so when I go to get on a toilet and especially my knees are acting up that day, it's uncomfortable.

[00:16:14] Eric Goranson: Yeah. So why not create that of the house that you're in, right? Yeah. Just make it a little higher. And then the other thing to do too, and we'll, we'll get into kitchen design and the next segment, cuz that's its own little thing about what you can do within your kitchen. But there's other things that you should be thinking about lighting control as you get older.

[00:16:33] Eric Goranson: So think about lighting. So if you're 25 years old, you need half the light to see as the same person that's 60. Mm. So to see the same way to be able to perceive that. The older person needs a lot more light. So you almost have to have, especially in a, in a situation where you've got somebody younger, somebody [00:17:00] older, you need to almost have two settings.

[00:17:04] Eric Goranson: To be able to control the dimming on that. Because for one person's gonna be too, too bright or too dim or vice versa. That's the same

[00:17:10] Caroline Blazovsky: with the thermostat. As you get older,

[00:17:12] Eric Goranson: you're always cold. Oh my gosh. oh, that's that starts out. Usually spouse to spouse. Right? Somebody's not happy

[00:17:20] Caroline Blazovsky: then it just gets 'em worse because you're older.

[00:17:21] Caroline Blazovsky: You go into every older person. So am I go into I'm like sweating? I'm like, what tap is it in here? It's like 81.

[00:17:28] Eric Goranson: Oh my gosh. Right. It's 81 degrees and you're like, what's going. Now here's another one too, that we'll talk about before we go out to break that's important. And this is kind of a really important one too.

[00:17:40] Eric Goranson: And we'll talk about the, a little bit more as flooring. When we come back, I want to talk a little bit about flooring, because think about, you know, think about when you're at the, when you're rolling around in an airport or you're going into a hotel and you're pulling your luggage, right? Mm-hmm going across the hard floor, man.

[00:17:56] Eric Goranson: You're cruising. You get into a plush carpet. [00:18:00] You're like, oh man, I'm dragging this. It's hard to roll on that. Mm-hmm so when we come back, I wanna talk about flooring, cuz this is a really big deal and a really important one because you could do something that's too slippery. You could do something that's too soft up there.

[00:18:17] Eric Goranson: When Caroline she'll be back at just a second. See ya. That's me in my wheelchair. Yeah. I was gonna say she's outta here. She's got the turbo mode.

[00:18:30] Eric Goranson: we'll back to that. Just as soon around the house.[00:19:00]

[00:19:13] Eric Goranson: Welcome back to the round, the house show, Caroline, just sped back into the studio here. here you go. There we go. well, we've been talking about keeping, you know, designing that home for aging in place or, or, you know, maybe grandma's coming to live or, or you've got kids. Coming into an older adult home.

[00:19:34] Eric Goranson: There's a lot of things you can do with this. And we're talking before last break about flooring. And this is a huge one because if you're in a wheelchair, they're gonna say have a hard surface floor, like a vinyl floor, or at the most a commercial office carpet with no pad, because otherwise it's too hard to get around.

[00:19:56] Eric Goranson: No cutoff slack, you know, just that cheapy office [00:20:00] carpet. Like, and

[00:20:02] Caroline Blazovsky: that makes sense. I mean, it, it does because you've gotta be able to maneuver, but what I worry about is falling. So in my career, I have seen so many of my clients wanna put in wood and tile. And so over the age of 65, I kind of lean against it.

[00:20:18] Caroline Blazovsky: And most people go, I can't believe you'd recommend carpeting. And I do, if you're a fall risk, cuz I don't wanna see you fall on tile. You'll break a hip. Yeah.

[00:20:26] Eric Goranson: You'll break the arm. And the problem is too, is that, that if they're in. If they're in a wheelchair, right? Tile's a better solution cuz they're gonna be able to get around.

[00:20:35] Eric Goranson: And especially if they're in a, if they're in a Walker, you know what I mean? You could actually push the Walker around. Like my mom would have a hard time if she had, she's got tile in most of the place and some of the rooms have carpet in them, but she's got tile. She can get around in the kitchen and the, in the hallway much easier when she gets in the bedroom because the bedroom, she has a hard time getting around, you know, in her eighties.[00:21:00]

[00:21:00] Eric Goranson: The carpet. Car.

[00:21:02] Caroline Blazovsky: Well, I think if you're in a wheelchair, then you're less. I mean, I would think, I would hope you're less of a fall risk because you're not. Yeah. I worry about people who are like, say 75 and they're walking around all the time and they move too fast and then they're like hit the tile. Yeah.

[00:21:15] Caroline Blazovsky: And then they're done. I've had it happen in my relatives. They've broken their arm in three places.

[00:21:19] Eric Goranson: Hips. Yeah. Yeah. It's bad. It's crazy. So that's one of the things. And then when you're thinking about tile too, always wanna pay attention to that co slip coefficient on there. There is a little number on.

[00:21:31] Eric Goranson: And pay attention to that number that will tell you what the traction level of that tile is. So you wanna have something that's gonna traction? Yeah. You wanna have something? That's got some texture to it. How many

[00:21:44] Caroline Blazovsky: people out there, why would you not though? Why would you put in a completely slip, like gloss?

[00:21:50] Caroline Blazovsky: How many

[00:21:50] Eric Goranson: people want would be the better marble floors in cuz they wanna make it look like that high end hotel might as well put an ice skating rink down. You're gonna eat. I'm gonna eat it when it [00:22:00] gets wet. Oh my gosh. You know what I mean? I mean, that's just how you get hurt. So making sure that you've got something, that's got some texture to it.

[00:22:08] Eric Goranson: It's no different. If you were doing an outside tile or something like that, it's really wanna make sure you've got that texture to. So, if something gets wet, you don't eat it. And hardwood floors are tough because they're standard smooth. That's probably one of the worst ones with bare feet. If you've got hardwood, floors, bare feet, and a little bit of water, it's like ice.

[00:22:25] Eric Goranson: Mm. So it's something to te it is, it's a fall risk. It's a fall risk fix your

[00:22:33] Caroline Blazovsky: fall hazards.

[00:22:34] Eric Goranson: Yeah. So something to consider there. Now, one of the other things that I think is really important. Is we'll dive into the kitchen here for a minute, because this is an important one. And there's different levels within the kitchen.

[00:22:46] Eric Goranson: I do not like designing that kitchen that looks like a commercial ADA kitchen with the nine inch high to kicks around it. Mm-hmm it just, it just looks like 1980s, 88 to me. So it's not something I like, [00:23:00] but these days there are so many cool technologies. For someone who is in a wheelchair that you can have a motorized countertop that moves up and down, including one with a sink or a cooktop to adjust that nice to the right height.

[00:23:18] Caroline Blazovsky: And even like the sensors, just for your hands mm-hmm, making sure that they have all the cabinetry now where you can have the heavy pots, like centrally located for you to grab. And there's so much more than we used to have back in the eighties and nineties. Oh

[00:23:30] Eric Goranson: yeah. So now you can literally roll up and, and I prefer a cooktop in an oven situation versus a range because with the cooktop yeah.

[00:23:39] Eric Goranson: You could roll up and actually get your knees under. When it's designed out correctly, and then you can work within that space and have it down where it's a safe level. Now, the worst appliance that you're gonna run into is a microwave in this, because that has to be low. That can't be a microwave range of that will get somebody [00:24:00] hurt.

[00:24:01] Eric Goranson: So eliminate that at all costs because you can't use it. If you do, you're reaching so high up to get it, that whatever you're pulling out, that's warm or. You're gonna get burned. Yeah.

[00:24:14] Caroline Blazovsky: Yeah. How about refrigerators? Are there any issues that are worse? The same? You know?

[00:24:18] Eric Goranson: Um, I'll be honest. I kind of like some of the French door fridges, cause I can get up and get into it with the bottom freezer is you can get down and get the bottom stuff and you can use the bottom, like two shelves within the fridge.

[00:24:33] Eric Goranson: Yes. You've got pretty good access. You know what I don't like about it is with sometimes with. With the side by sides is that you can have a hard time getting up there because the doors are in the way. Right. And so when you open a refrigerator door or the freezer door, you have to really kind of get outta the way with it.

[00:24:54] Eric Goranson: If you're just trying to go onto the fridge, it's a little bit easier access and the door's higher too. So usually you can swing it over your [00:25:00] lap or something like that, where you can get in and do that if you're in a wheelchair. So I prefer that over those. Now, if you had an unlimited budget, you could go in and do the, the built in fridge towers, like the sub zeros where you've got, but I'm not talking about spending $25,000 on refrigerators either.

[00:25:18] Eric Goranson: no, but that's a, that's a big one. Mean you can literally change these things and if you can afford that awesome. But that's where you can create, like my mom's house she's living and now my dad's passed. She's got a lowered section in her island. So we've got the dishwasher in one section. I actually raised her dishwasher up, so she had a, I raised it up.

[00:25:39] Eric Goranson: So it was kind of a raised area. How'd you do that from the bottom? Yeah. I to put a cabin in there and finish it off so it could be higher. So there's a little drawer below her. There's a tiny, like six inch door front below. Below that,

[00:25:52] Caroline Blazovsky: is it higher than everything else in the counter? Or how did

[00:25:55] Eric Goranson: you do that?

[00:25:55] Eric Goranson: I towered it. So it's almost like it's a corner that's raised with a top on it. So she's got plants and [00:26:00] stuff on it. And then I've got the rest of the, the, the large island down at a lower level. So that way it she's got something that she can cook on. Cuz my mom's, you know, five foot one, so I need to have something down.

[00:26:14] Eric Goranson: She's like me she's she's but the problem was my dad at the time, when we designed the house six foot five. So I had to consider, I couldn't do the whole house at one size. Right? Wow. It was tough. That's hard to do, you know, it's like, all right, we're gonna do this and we gotta do this. So there was this kind of ying and yang thing that I had to, you know, cuz my dad would go help, you know, or he'd barbecue and the him a 32 inch high or 30 inch high desk height countertops.

[00:26:41] Eric Goranson: Horrible. You couldn't use it.

[00:26:44] Caroline Blazovsky: Wow. You never even think it's like an NBA basketball player versus like a little tiny cheerleader. And like you've gotta advocate.

[00:26:51] Eric Goranson: You got, you got two different struggles there. Wow. So that's the tough part. And, and then the other stuff is, is you gotta start thinking about there's so many other challenges, [00:27:00] like electrical outlets.

[00:27:02] Eric Goranson: You now have to go plug in a mixer all the way across the countertop. So it's, you know, it's, it's one thing that I do. And if it's always an interesting perspective, if you're gonna design a kitchen out, or you're doing a as a DIY project, grab your office chair, throw it in the room that you're gonna design out and think about how you're gonna access it.

[00:27:24] Eric Goranson: Cause if you can't roll around on the office chair, and if you can't reach it from the office chair, you might have a problem. Mm. So that's almost the perspective to have when you're dealing with this. A lot

[00:27:37] Caroline Blazovsky: to think about there is, and then, I mean all of this, but, and then like talk about just safety rules.

[00:27:42] Caroline Blazovsky: Like when we can get into all the safety stuff you have to do, let's do that monoxide

[00:27:46] Eric Goranson: detect. Yeah. Let's jump into safety here. And there's a lot that, that, that. Slides in with you here as well, just on the healthy side of things. And I wanna really tackle as well. Now when we come back, we'll talk about that.

[00:27:57] Eric Goranson: And the other thing is too, just think about cabinet hardware too. Before, as we [00:28:00] go out to break here, you wanna have something again that you can get a hand into little, tiny, hard knobs or hard to do. And I wanna have a contrasting color. I don't wanna have a white knob and a white cabinet cuz somebody that's with reduced sight.

[00:28:12] Eric Goranson: Isn't gonna. So contrast is key. All right. We come back. Let's talk about the health and safety side of this and stuff. You should be planning out. We'll do that just as soon as around the house returns.[00:29:00]

[00:29:03] Eric Goranson: Hi everybody. I'm a man from Apolis band and you are listening to around the house with Eric G and the beautiful Caroline. Welcome back to the, around the house show. Caroline and I have been talking about well, aging in place and all the things you can do. And man, in this one hour, Caroline, we're not gonna even, we're gonna scratch the surface here, but we hope to be giving you some better information and, and really health, safety, welfare.

[00:29:32] Eric Goranson: Is really key to all this outside of all the cool designing stuff. And you brought up some great points during the break. Yeah. So

[00:29:38] Caroline Blazovsky: let's talk a little bit about safety tips and things that you have to, besides your design that you need to cover. And so one of that is making sure that all, and this is common sense, but making sure all your monitors.

[00:29:48] Caroline Blazovsky: Carbon dioxide, carbon mono oxide, you're checking all these kind of things in a, in an environment. And I usually recommend for older people too, because so like carbon dioxide is something that we don't think about. Cause [00:30:00] we breathe that all the time. But if the environment's not good, like if someone's in assisted living, it can make 'em really sleepy and groggy more so than you're normal being groggy.

[00:30:09] Caroline Blazovsky: So checking air quality is.

[00:30:12] Eric Goranson: It is. And that's the other thing I wanna add on top of that is, is all those monitors. I also think with somebody that's getting older, one of the personal monitors as well, maybe it's the, you know, oh yeah. Life and I can't get up life alert. One of those, even sometimes as simple as a quiet gift that I'm not gonna get one of those.

[00:30:32] Eric Goranson: Here's one of the things, right. You're gonna give it for grandma. You're not gonna get me one of those. I don't need one of those. I'm perfectly. Go buy her an apple watch. Mm-hmm mm-hmm she's gonna think it's really cute. But one of the things with the new apple watches are, if it detects a fall, you can set it up.

[00:30:49] Eric Goranson: It's in the normal settings. If I'm up on the roof right now and I fall off the roof and nobody else is home here, I have it set up that if I don't, it's gonna start buzzing when it realizes that [00:31:00] GForce, that I felt, mm. If it notices that if I don't respond and shut it off, it's calling Julie. That's

[00:31:07] Caroline Blazovsky: great.

[00:31:08] Caroline Blazovsky: How great is

[00:31:09] Eric Goranson: that. So that's the cool part. And you can do that and sneak it past grandma and grandpa or whoever you're getting this for. You can sneak it past them, cuz they're just thinking you're getting a cool watch. That's very star

[00:31:22] Caroline Blazovsky: Trek. My mom's gonna be almost 80 and she got one of the apple watches.

[00:31:26] Caroline Blazovsky: So sh if she can call someone, you can actually call from the watch now. So I mean, it's not great it's quality, but she could call me and say, Hey Caroline, I need help the phone and I can't get,

[00:31:36] Eric Goranson: come get me. Yeah, so that's key. And I think the other thing too is, is, you know, usually when you get into these aging in places too, you've got a compromised immune system that kind of goes with getting older.

[00:31:48] Eric Goranson: So making sure that you've got that air quality and, and humidity and all the normal stuff that we kind of talk about. Should be really dialed in. I mean, that's why it's in hospitals trying to keep things as good as possible for people that are trying to [00:32:00] breathe.

[00:32:00] Caroline Blazovsky: And then of course guys, HEPA filtration, anybody over the age, 65, I push it all the time in like my agenda.

[00:32:06] Caroline Blazovsky: It helps you to actually breathe better and prevent disease states from activating. So get a HEPA filter for anyone over the age of 65 and put it in their bedroom,

[00:32:16] Eric Goranson: run it all the time. Absolutely. And that's, that's a big one. I mean, and again, it's just part of that whole preventive. What I call preventive maintenance around the house.

[00:32:25] Eric Goranson: You need to do this. And then here's the other part I noticed this with, with my mom is as they get older, it's harder to maintain stuff around the house. So the maintenance starts to slide mm-hmm . Because, you know, I've gotta, I've gotta help my mom out with some stuff over there. My brothers do some landscaping.

[00:32:47] Eric Goranson: I mean, she's getting her lawn mode. It looks good. But all of a sudden, when I was over there this last time, I'm like, Ooh, you need to start thinking about what's going on outside because you're used to going out, mowing the lawn and doing all this stuff what's gonna [00:33:00] happen. Do you have something that's fairly low maintenance?

[00:33:04] Eric Goranson: That you can hire out to have it done, because there's gonna be a point that it's gonna be hard for you to go out and do that. You can

[00:33:10] Caroline Blazovsky: tell, like in my neighborhood, when you see the people versus the younger people versus the older, the old you can tell by a house, if there's somebody elderly, usually living there.

[00:33:19] Caroline Blazovsky: And it's sad because, you know, from a safety standpoint, you're right. If somebody's driving by and senses, Hey, this is an easy prey. I can Rob this house. There's an older person here. So I think that's a common problem.

[00:33:31] Eric Goranson: And, you know, one of the challenges I learned with having other friends and family, you know, not direct family, but maybe a girl.

[00:33:39] Eric Goranson: I was dating her mom or grandma or something like that. One of the toughest things, and this is not really home improvement, but it's something you've gotta figure out and they don't make it easy on you. There's gonna be a point that someone's not gonna be able to drive. Right. Mm-hmm that those car keys need to get taken away and more often than not, it takes something [00:34:00] bad.

[00:34:01] Eric Goranson: For somebody to realize that there's a problem might be a small accident. Maybe they run into the garage door. Maybe they run the side of the garage down the side of the car. You know what I mean? Or whatever, but these are things you gotta do. And I'll tell you what, there's, it's a struggle like in the state of Washington, for instance, up here, if my mom was driving, she's not.

[00:34:22] Eric Goranson: And I wanted to report her to the state to have them test and check her license. There's no anonymous way to do it really.

[00:34:32] Caroline Blazovsky: So she knows it's

[00:34:32] you.

[00:34:33] Eric Goranson: So if you call, all that person has to do is go. I want a freedom of information request. You need to give me that person and you've been outed. So it causes a lot more.

[00:34:45] Eric Goranson: People to be on the road that, that the family members are going. Ah, I told her she shouldn't be driving. I think it, but nobody wants to stick their neck out and do it. I think

[00:34:53] Caroline Blazovsky: it's a key to my aunt lived very long when she lived in 98 and she drove till she was 95. And so [00:35:00] what's amazing is that as soon as she got into her, she got an, a fender bender.

[00:35:03] Caroline Blazovsky: She said, that's it. I'm not driving anymore. She knew her limitation and she did her whole life. And I think it's important, even though we don't wanna seem weak or vulnerable. Knowing that limitations that we all ha have as we age makes you, you're gonna age more gracefully if you ask for help. Mm-hmm and you're

[00:35:23] Eric Goranson: also gonna, and there's, I was just gonna say, there's so many options out there too.

[00:35:27] Eric Goranson: These days, you know, 10 years ago there wasn't Uber left, right? Mm-hmm so now it's, it's really easy to, to have somebody come pick you up and drop you off at the grocery store doctor or whatever, call it when you're going through the register and have somebody pick you up and take you home a hundred percent.

[00:35:42] Eric Goranson: So there's a lot of great options for that these days. And you know, there's a lot of places too, where the, maybe the community transit or the, the, you know, A dial ride program with many people for seniors in a lot of communities across the United States, where you can call up and ask her schedule, maybe a [00:36:00] doctor's office visit, and they'll drop you off door to door.

[00:36:02] Caroline Blazovsky: It's just knowing your limitation. We all have to know it and it's gonna help you age better. I mean, you're just going to live longer. And that's why she lived so long. Cuz she was smart. She thought about these things and said, Hey, I can't do it. I don't, I'll ask for

[00:36:14] Eric Goranson: help. Yeah. And, and it's, it's sad cuz ego very much gets in the way the loss of control.

[00:36:20] Eric Goranson: I'm gonna fight it. Tooth and

[00:36:21] Caroline Blazovsky: nail. I think men are, I don't know. Maybe it's a, maybe it's being judgemental, but I feel like men have that pride. You're so strong, you know? And they, they kind of have a harder time than the females a little bit. Yeah, I think

[00:36:32] Eric Goranson: so. I, I've also seen women that are like, you know, you're not taking that away from me.

[00:36:38] Eric Goranson: Not everybody. I've seen it both ways, but yeah, not everybody, but yeah, men generally speaking, I'd say that's more often than not the case. There's exceptions to everything out there. My God, or

[00:36:47] Caroline Blazovsky: die. You guys, I don't know.

[00:36:51] Eric Goranson: so yeah, absolutely. So these are things that you should all be kind of considering of how that's all going to work.

[00:36:58] Eric Goranson: And you know, it's one thing to, to get [00:37:00] a house that's, you know, if you get that ranch house where you got the property and you could have everything on one level and it's got big hallways, Man you're already halfway there, but it's when you get into more of a city environment where maybe you got two or even three floors, now you gotta start thinking about, okay, for your model.

[00:37:15] Eric Goranson: Do I either put an elevator in, like we talked about or, um, or a bedroom on that floor so you can have access. It's

[00:37:21] always

[00:37:21] Caroline Blazovsky: nice in Florida. One thing about Florida that I do like is they always have a master suite on the first floor. Like that's just a known thing and they have more ranches and better living for the elderly.

[00:37:34] Eric Goranson: Yeah. It's well, it's, it's one of those things it's well, planned out a lot of new homes you'll see on a new home ad master on Maine. Right. Mm-hmm , you know, you'll see that and that's, that's a big deal, but anything below, you know, 2000, it's pretty rare unless it's a ranch, you know, it's usually living space downstairs.

[00:37:52] Eric Goranson: Bedroom's upstairs, you know, that's, that's more often. And then the other thing you gotta think about too is bath is basement. If you've got a [00:38:00] basement. And you've got laundry down there. You've got heating and cooling, or you've gotta be able to think of a place that you can put that where you have access, cuz you don't wanna have to put, you know, you're not putting a ramp downstairs.

[00:38:13] Eric Goranson: How are you gonna get downstairs? And if it's a little tiny old staircase. Someone's gotta be doing laundry for you, or you need to figure out a way to move that upstairs into a closet.

[00:38:21] Caroline Blazovsky: Laundry is always like, I really like it on the first floor when I look at a house and I see it in the basement. I'm like, is there somewhere to put it upstairs?

[00:38:28] Caroline Blazovsky: Yeah,

[00:38:29] Eric Goranson: I would much rather see it on the second floor in the bedrooms. Than I would in the basement. Mm-hmm, , it's so much closer and laundry's so much quieter than it used to be as well. And I mean, you could build them now and you don't have to worry about it. You can make it where they're, they're quiet.

[00:38:42] Eric Goranson: They're, you know, they're not shaking the whole thing. And again, it's something that you've gotta think about and it's, I don't like adding more moisture and a can in a, in a damp basement with laundry and, and laundry will always add some moisture to that space. Oh, a hundred

[00:38:55] Caroline Blazovsky: percent. And then

[00:38:57] Eric Goranson: you even more.

[00:38:58] Eric Goranson: So if you've got the top lo the top [00:39:00] load machines, just cuz you've, there's no seal there. It's just water splashing around, right? Oh yeah. It's just,

[00:39:04] Caroline Blazovsky: they get moldy faster. You don't have humidity control down there. Your, your laundry, if you leave it in and you leave it in a basement, that's Dan, your laundry's gonna smell Dan.

[00:39:13] Caroline Blazovsky: Picks up everything in the air, that's down there

[00:39:16] Eric Goranson: and that's it. All right, Carolina. Hear the music in the background. I'm Eric G I'm Caroline B. You had listened to Around the House! .