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Our condo is pretty new - built in 2013 but it has intrinsic issues.
We are on the 2nd floor and the stairway (no elevators for 3 stories) is OPEN on one side so you could totally fall through if you tripped, and break your neck. It was built with NO railings on one side!!!!!!!!
We politely fought with our late builder/good friend who was very defensive about it---despite being a high-end builder from No. Calif. It seems to be very problematic to install railings in the open space and the 2 landings, after the fact. Even in the land of no building codes, this lack seems amazing, though I see open stairways everywhere. And we're all OLD here!
I LOVE my smooth tile floors and they make so much sense here in this climate (no one has carpet) BUT I am deathly afraid of slipping to a hard fall (happened once already---just a spot of water by the dispenser).
But I have NO idea what the solution to that is.... Area rugs have their own tripping hazards....
Also, can't drink the tap water, but we are used to that, living with a marginal well for decades.
The kitchen design is awkward with the refrigerator blocking the lower cabinets and only one person can be in there at a time---but we can live with that.
Oh yeah, our propane gas is piped to the stove by a flexible rubber tube that is located in the wall---no one knows where. It goes down to a storage room where we have 5-gallon tanks. Doesn't seem particularly safe to me.
Nanny state this is not.
I can relate to the feeling of unease on a tile floor. Our old house had tile that was slippery and with osteoporosis, one fall had me laid up for weeks. Our current house has all tile floors too which is what I wanted but the difference is in the texture of the tile. It's not one flat surface - there are groves and a rough texture to it that makes me feel more confident walking with socks on. The socks I wear in the house have little grip circles on the bottom just to be extra safe.
Levels. There's a step up to the bathroom, down to a bedroom closet, etc. I worry about how safe it will be to age here. Also heats unevenly, if the living room is comfortable, the master bedroom is roasting hot.
1) A decent slope in the front yard that erodes the turf.
2) Leech field prevents me from planting privacy shrubs along our fence line. (Don't want root invasion.)
3) Too much interaction with the neighbors. (It's a walkable neighborhood. They're all nice folks, but I like to do my thing and get back in the house.)
4) Upgraded carpet the builder used is junk.
5) I'd prefer a much larger garage than we have. (Even ten feet deeper would be nice.)
When I moved here, I could have listed a hundred things but I've fixed most of them with repairs, renovations, and cosmetic therapy.
However, there are two things I absolutely hate and can't do anything about...
The insanity called an open floor plan. This has been discussed ad infinitum in many other threads so I won't get into it again except to say I hate it and it's not fixable.
And in this area of hills and foothills, most homes are built on hillsides, which gave mine a garage under the main living area. Only a flipping moron would ever come up with a scheme that required you to carry every single bag of groceries and other purchases up a flight of stairs.
[Before all the snarky comments occur about the inadvisability of buying this house in the first place, let me say that this house was purchased as a weekend getaway which would have made the other things tolerable, that I became disabled a week after the closing and ended up having to make this a full-time residence due to financial considerations, and after renovating it to accommodate said disabilities, I can't afford to sell it and buy something else, particularly with the skyrocketing price of homes here due to COVID moves.]
We own a two story house. The stairs leading to the upstairs loft, were very narrow and steep. When we moved in, the steps going up were about 4" high and 6" deep. You literally had to walk up them sideways. They were pretty scary to negotiate.
I did a lot of research and found a European style that were the correct height and depth. They were called alternating steps. I built the steps and installed them. The first step is on the right, the next is on the left and so on to the top. Their not too scary going up, but coming down makes me nervous. If you don't hit the top step correctly it would be a hell of a tumble, but that hasn't happened in 13 years, so we're good so far.
Also the bed rooms are pretty small at 11' X 11'. Not optimal, but there are plenty of other features that we love. I think we'll keep it.
I LOVE my smooth tile floors and they make so much sense here in this climate (no one has carpet) BUT I am deathly afraid of slipping to a hard fall (happened once already---just a spot of water by the dispenser).
But I have NO idea what the solution to that is.... Area rugs have their own tripping hazards....
It is possible to mix up a clear coat that has friction enhancers in it and apply that to the tile. The surface of the tile would need to be roughed up a bit sort of like taking sandpaper to wood prior to painting it. It would be a challenge to rough up the tile correctly without damaging it by making visible scratches in the glazing, but it absolutely can be done. Maybe test with a spare piece of tile.
A polyurethane clear coat with Shark Grip friction enhancer mixed in would work. So would a polyurea or polyaspartic. Because of the amount of light you get, a clear epoxy is probably not the best idea (epoxies tend to turn "yellow" with extended exposure to UV light, and they tend to "chalk" as well). Possibly a concrete sealer would work.
This is Shark Grip. It is the consistency of very fine talcum powder. You add it to a container of clear coat and mix it all together. When applied in a clear coat, the surface won't be quite as shiny - more matte. The beauty: it is a wonderful friction enhancer when it is wet. I've used it in garage epoxy applications, and with snowmelt or water on the floor, there is excellent traction. It is a go-to product for people who do floor coatings.
1. The neighbor across the road. Nice people but pigs.
2. The leaky shower. It leaked when we bought it, but we didn't know that. Yes, the house was inspected. No one has used it in several years. It's next on the list to be fixed.
3. The small bathrooms. It's a 1980s house.
4. The dehumidifier in the basement has to be emptied by hand because of the slope. The septic tank is actually in the front of the house. It cost extra to have it pumped because it had to be buried deeper because of the slope.
5. Drafty windows that leak. I'll get to them someday.
6. Too many pine trees.
7. An unusable loft that you access by a built-in ladder and railing system that also connects to the basement. I block it off with a loveseat to try to deter the grandkids from climbing up. If you wanted to put furniture up there, you'd have to assemble it up there. Too open to serve as storage because whatever you were storing could be seen from the living room. Like I said, it's unusable. I guess it is there to provide a ceiling for the dining room.
But I do like a lot of things about the house. I won't say that it is my "forever" home, but it IS a one-story ranch. That's important as you age and difficult to find in newer homes because land is so expensive. We've done a lot of the necessary infrastructure improvements that a different older home might not have done yet. The location is ideal--rural with a lot of privacy, but about 10 minutes from amenities and only 25 minutes from a major research hospital. Taxes are low.
We really love our house. It's our third SFH before that we lived in a townhouse and a singlewide trailer. It needs some upgrades, it had burned at one point and when the owner at the time rebuilt, he cut corners everywhere, so the hardwood floors are gone, the nice countertops in the bathrooms are gone, but those are things we can do over time. The things we can't change that I would like to are the size of our master, it's decent, but two houses ago we had an amazing master. The tradeoff is that we have an amazing bathroom while in that home we had a very small one. The kitchen is very small. It's adequate, just smaller than I'd like (and trust me, I don't need or want an enormous kitchen, just one my husband and I can work in at the same time). The biggest mistake I made when we chose this house is that it's in a very small subdivision with approximately 15 houses so walking the dogs is boring after a while and the closest other place to walk them is 20 minutes away. I want a place where I can walk out the door and walk them for a few miles, not walk the same roadway 3 times to get 2 miles in.
Fact is, I haven't found my perfect home, but this one is very close to being it, minus a few things.
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Area rugs have their own tripping hazards....
