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Don't get a tall toilet until you've used one - and decided you like it. Being a short woman - there is nothing worse than sitting on a toilet and having your legs dangling 3 inches above the floor. Robyn
We had them in our last house - we special ordered them. I broke my leg and my husband had knee surgery - they were lifesavers. I'm 5'10, my husband is 6'7 - tall toilets for us.
All I can say, regarding stairs, is we lived in a 2700 sq ft single floor house in FL and we felt like we lived in a pen. Every time we went to a mall or had reason to do business in a tall building, we sought out stairs and the muscles we weren't using on a day-to-day basis burned good. Street walking, treadmill, nothing is the same as going up and down stairs.
Right now we're using all 3 floors but our MBR is on the 1st level as is our master bath and laundry so in the future, if need be, we can live on one floor. We've got 2 steps to get outside or into the garage and someone plows and shovels us out. The future is taken care of. For now I'm zipping up and down the stairs and my legs and my butt are thanking me every day. There's not much I'd have done differently.
We had them in our last house - we special ordered them. I broke my leg and my husband had knee surgery - they were lifesavers. I'm 5'10, my husband is 6'7 - tall toilets for us.
At 5'10" and 6'7" - I'd say *VERY* tall toilets . Robyn
All I can say, regarding stairs, is we lived in a 2700 sq ft single floor house in FL and we felt like we lived in a pen. Every time we went to a mall or had reason to do business in a tall building, we sought out stairs and the muscles we weren't using on a day-to-day basis burned good. Street walking, treadmill, nothing is the same as going up and down stairs.
Right now we're using all 3 floors but our MBR is on the 1st level as is our master bath and laundry so in the future, if need be, we can live on one floor. We've got 2 steps to get outside or into the garage and someone plows and shovels us out. The future is taken care of. For now I'm zipping up and down the stairs and my legs and my butt are thanking me every day. There's not much I'd have done differently.
I guess I'm kind of a practical person (this is a thread where you're allowed to be practical ). Having a house with 3 floors when one realizes the day may well come when only one will be useable doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Unless one has a current need for 3 floors (children still at home - land too expensive to build single story - etc.). I know a lot of people our age (mid-60's) are now stuck in their multi-story houses due to the real estate bust - but this is more of a thread about design considerations for people considering new places. Although messages about adapting places people are kind of stuck with now are also important (I don't think the real estate market is going to recover in a big way anytime soon).
And I guess I also wonder whether there weren't other reasons you didn't like the single story house other than the lack of stairs. Buying a Stairmaster - even a high end one - is a heck of a lot cheaper than moving. Perhaps you didn't like the area in Florida - or Florida - wanted a bigger more expensive house - a smaller cheaper house - the house had problems - etc. - etc.? Also - a Stairmaster is more predictable than actual stairs. My husband can ride a stationary bike - but he might hurt himself pretty badly on a real bike due to balance and gait and leg stability problems. It's kind of hard for me to believe that someone would sell a house simply because it didn't have stairs. Unless you got an offer you couldn't refuse at the height of the real estate market mania .
BTW - what kind of rooms are on your second and third floors - and what do you use them for? Here are the original plans for our house (we made some changes before we started construction - but they weren't major):
We use just about 100% of the house every day (2 bedrooms are home offices - and I use the guest room as a second master BR when my husband starts to snore at night ).
FWIW - we had an amusing discussion with a manager we like at our local hardware store today. He said this is the season he has to discourage many customers - no matter how old they are - from buying stuff to do things they shouldn't be doing (mostly getting on extension ladders to hang Christmas decorations). We live in a fairly affluent area where most people can afford to hire people to do this stuff for them. But apparently a lot of people (mostly guys) look at getting on ladders and hanging Christmas stuff as a sign of macho masculinity. Robyn
P.S. Think I answered some of my own questions by reading some of your recent messages elsewhere. You spent 5 years in Florida - and didn't like Florida for a variety of reasons (not being close to family/friends - didn't like the weather - etc.). And now you live on Cape Cod. In all your messages that you've written elsewhere about your move - I didn't find one that mentions stairs. I think your messages about why you moved back up north make sense - at least for you. But please don't say you moved from Florida to Cape Cod because your house in Florida didn't have stairs!
BTW - I also think you and your husband are relatively young - early or perhaps mid-60's - yes? Robyn
I looked it up and I won't bore you with cites or belabor the point any more than to say that falls are the number one cause of injuries to the elderly in the home, the stairs are the number one cause of the falls, and the obstacle resulting in the most serious injuries. And, that stair design can minimize accidents but not eliminate them which can only be accomplished by removing stairs. Look it up. I still like stairs but they may be too dangerous for a residence that a person wants to die of old age in as opposed to dying of accidental death.
Robyn, it would never occur to me to spend any amount of time investigating you, reading your back posts, etc., to find out where you were coming from but good luck to you. It's also sad that in order to give my words any validity you had to 'figure me out'.
We also use every single inch of our new home, I'm currently on the top floor in a loft, typing on my computer, loving the view of the woods and the pond through the fog. I have a full bath up here as well as a guestroom that was used just this weekend by my grandson. Our lower level isn't a basement, it's a full walk-out, with another deck and a view of a wooded pond. We use the lower level for entertaining, it's also another guestroom, which was also used this weekend, and it has a home theater set up. Our main level is just that, kitchen, MBR, MBA, LR, Laundry, etc.
Having a house with 3 floors when one realizes the day may well come when only one will be useable doesn't make a lot of sense to me. How about taste? There's something stately about stairs. How about you take a deep breath and live and let live. It must give you a headache always having to be right. Also, the day will come when all we'll need is a pine box and a hole in the ground. Should I move there now because 'the day may well come'???
Also, the day will come when all we'll need is a pine box and a hole in the ground. Should I move there now because 'the day may well come'???
Good point. There is a philosophical issue underlying this whole discussion. Why are we so ready to accept being crippled, or disabled , or whatever word we want to use for it? It is not inevitable that everyone winds up that way. Would it not be better to focus on living in such a way as to minimize the chances, such as maintaining muscle tone and balance through activities such as yoga? Some folks act like they just assume that they will need to be in a nursing home someday, and that mindset leads to a fearful, timid way of living.
The above is one philosophical view, and its opposite might call that view denial. Denial of the possibility that we could become crippled and disabled and therefore end up in a nursing home. And that possibility is not entirely remote, as we can see by looking around us. So the sensible conclusion (for this opposite mindset) would be to prepare for the worst while hoping the preparations will not be needed; we buy long-term care insurance, get a single-story house, widen the doorways to accept a wheelchair, etc.
These two basic viewpoints are quite different from each other, and they are probably influenced by our temperaments and our experience with aging relatives, among other factors. It is truly a philosophical issue, and failure to realize this leads to much talking past each other in these types of threads.
It's probably not hard to guess, if you have read my posts, that I belong to the first camp. But that doesn't mean I think people are doing the wrong thing to get a one-story house; if that makes them comfortable there is no harm, and indeed, it could turn out that they will need it someday. I have simply been trying to present another way to look at the issue.
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. Robyn
). Having a house with 3 floors when one realizes the day may well come when only one will be useable doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Unless one has a current need for 3 floors (children still at home - land too expensive to build single story - etc.). I know a lot of people our age (mid-60's) are now stuck in their multi-story houses due to the real estate bust - but this is more of a thread about design considerations for people considering new places. Although messages about adapting places people are kind of stuck with now are also important (I don't think the real estate market is going to recover in a big way anytime soon).
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The underlying philosophical issue
