“Aging In Place Largely Means Staying Put”

This home, whether it was acquired to do so, has served the needs of its occupants for many years and can continue to do so – as it is or with some modifications to address current needs and requirements.

 

We already have a home

Somewhere in our past, recently or decades ago, we found a home that we liked better than others we considered and moved into it. Maybe we didn’t even think about it being able to meet or fulfill our needs these many years later, but here we are in the same home. Either we did a very good job of sizing up the marketplace and picking a home that appealed to us then as well as now – even if this decision was based largely on price – and we are comfortably occupying this home with no foreseeable need to move.

This is the essence of aging in place – finding a home to occupy, or using the one we already have, and continuing to live there long-term. While the home or apartment we have now may not be perfect, it appeals to us on many levels, and it certainly is easier and far less time-consuming to keep it than looking for another dwelling. Who knows how long or how far we might have to look to find something equal to or better than what we have already? We have a place to live so let’s keep it.

Over the passing years and months, we get different cars, new clothes, computers, software, other electronic gadgets, and things to make our lives easier or more relevant to what we are doing, but we don’t need to compound our lifestyle with additional concerns and stress in the form of looking for a new place to occupy, possibly finding it, comparing it to what we have now, and potentially uprooting where we are now and moving elsewhere. We have a home now, and our time would seem to be much better utilized focused on areas outside of our basic swelling. Even enhancing what we have would be a positive direction.

Is the grass is always greener elsewhere?

We often heard it said and possibly even thought that the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. In a word, this is called perspective. Things that we can’t see or experience up close may look attractive to us from a distance.

Nevertheless, a new outlook on life that might come from changing our place of residence could be beneficial, we might think. However, at any stage in life, except for our youth when we don’t have as many items to relocate to a new residence, moving is not as much fun or exciting as we might have imagined.

Even after we prepare our home to show to others and have strangers traipsing through our home and commenting on what we have done with the furnishings and general décor, we still have to pack up everything we own and relocate it. Things great misplaced and lost. Items get damaged in the packing,  moving, and unpacking process. While most things have a place to be in our current home – even if we do seem to be a little cluttered and disorganized, imagine how that will look when we try to fit everything we have into a new dwelling space.

The act of moving

One of the chief reasons people don’t move at all or as often as they get older is because it is so disruptive. As such, it’s not much fun. Imagine that we decided today to look for a new home or apartment to occupy. First, we’d have to determine what are our “must-haves” and what we “don’t need.” Add in what we’d like to get. Then we have to define the basic style, layout, location, and price point of what we want to look at and potentially acquire. How many days, weekends, evenings, weeks, or months might this take – just to find a place that we like well enough to consider giving up what we have now and moving into it?

Additionally, our current home may not be ready for prime time. We may have several maintenance items that require attention before we could put it on the market – painting, fixing windows or doors, changing out door and cabinet hardware, installing a new electrical circuit to address one that is overloaded or inadequate, replacing light fixtures, adding new flooring, redoing or upgrading the kitchen and possibly the hall bath and master as well. That’s just for starters.

Of course, after we do all of this – just like the home we see on the TV makeover shows – we may like our home so well that we will want to keep it. We couldn’t possibly give up a home that is so well-suited for our needs and one that looks good as well. After the improvements, we might reason that it’s too nice for someone to get so we’ll keep it for ourselves.

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