While some parents decide to downsize after their children leave home, you might prefer to stay in the family home. You might not want to move away into a smaller property.
However, once your home becomes an empty nest, you might not feel that it works for the two of you as well as it did when all your children lived at home. This is a great time to plan renovations. You can rejuvenate the property and make it work for you again. What are the benefits of renovating your empty nest?
1. Do the things you’ve always dreamed of
While your children lived at home, you might not have had the time or money to renovate the property. Its layout might have suited family life, and you didn’t see any point in making changes at this stage.
However, this doesn’t mean that you don’t have a list of dream changes you’d like to make. You might have planned these for years. Or, you might only now realise that you want to refresh your living space.
Some empty nesters simply rejuvenate their homes on a cosmetic level. They redecorate their homes and make minor changes. However, others use this time to make dream renovations.
For example, you might have considered a new open-plan kitchen and living area. You might have dreamed about building a larger master bedroom with a walk-in wardrobe once the bedroom next to yours is no longer occupied. Now is the time to modernise utilitarian family bathrooms and turn them into havens of relaxation and pampering.
You can also repurpose rooms in your home now. You can turn a bedroom into a library, home office or sewing room. Or, you can add an extension to create a workshop or art studio. The space you own is yours to live in now, so you can choose what to do with it without worrying about how changes affect your family’s living space.
2. Prepare for changing family needs
Once your children grow up and leave home, you move to the next stage of family life. Over time, your kids might meet partners, settle down and have children of their own. While they might never live with you again, they will come back to visit. If they settle close to home, then your grandchildren might come for regular playdates and sleepovers.
After years of family life with teenagers and young adults, your home might not be ready for these visits. So, you might want to turn one of your children’s bedrooms into a more adult guest room. You could add an ensuite bathroom to make things more comfortable for your family when they come to stay.
You can also change things around to create more child-friendly spaces. For example, you could split a larger room in two to build a small nursery. Or, you could add a sunroom or rumpus to your ground floor that your grandkids could use.
3. Get your home ready for later life
If you plan to stay in your home in the long-term, then consider making changes which will help you in the future. While you might be fit and healthy now, you should think about whether your home is suitable to live in if you lose some mobility.
For example, you could add a downstairs shower room or reconfigure existing bathrooms to add a walk-in shower. Or you could modernise a dated bathroom to be more open for mobility. If your stairs are steep and narrow, then a wider staircase with a lower pitch will be easier to use as you get older. Simple changes like putting in extra balustrading and handrails also help.
If you’re keen to make changes to your empty nest home, then contact Builders At Your Service. We are a family-run company with over 35 years of building and renovation experience. With our help, your empty nest can become your dream home for many years to come.
