Chasing The Dream - Our Forever Home

Chasing the Dream - Our Forever Home

a note from bill

In the past four months, my life has been mostly centered around the construction of our new forever home. It comes as no surprise to our readers that the foundational inspiration, as I call in the Design+Build Decoded (DBD) series, our “Why” was to design a home aligned with aging-in-place. On one side of the coin, I am motivated to build a home that my wife and I can continue to live in as we grow and age; on the other side of the coin, however, I am an architect and a contractor...which means there is a verifiably strong drive to do a lot of the work myself! I have a curse in a way that I want to do many items myself; because I can, but more importantly, I enjoy doing it.

For those who stay up-to-date on the DBD video series(and if you aren’t up-to-date, you can click here), you can probably see just how often I am out at the site, helping the subcontractors, and even installing pieces of the construction all on my own. Back in December, I was slowly turning to ice while installing the radiant tubing in my home’s basement—ironically enough, the radiant tubing which will help keep the basement warm and comfortable in future winter months. That day, video evidence clearly heard me saying something to the effect of this being “back-breaking work”. Little did I know, months later, how true that would be. 

I guess age is catching up with me, as it does to all of us. In the last several months, I have had multiple medical issues, none earth-shattering, but bothersome and time-consuming nonetheless. An attack of salmonella and severe back pain put me in the emergency room last month; interestingly enough, one of our past clients was in the same ER with a family member and walked by my room. Although she didn’t stop at that moment, she did email me to ask if I was OK. That made my day.

Construction proceeds on schedule, but we also need to get our existing house ready to put on the market. More back-breaking tasks of boxing, organizing, and shipping things off to storage. To come full circle, I have known for a while that I will need to have my aortic heart valve replaced (nothing symptomatic at the moment, thankfully) and that has me scheduled for open-heart surgery in September. Unfortunately, it put an end to my racing season before it started. However––lucky me––I get to spend my recovery in our new home, with its single-level living, no threshold shower, and grab bars. It also exemplifies just how right it was to focus on aging-in-place for the design of this home.

So, why do I share all of this? It goes back to the “Why” that was the basis for our new home. I didn’t anticipate medical issues for at least another ten years, but you never know when you might get hit by a bus, or need a valve replaced. If you are planning a new home or making modifications to an existing home, it’s never too early to plan for aging in place.
​

until next time,

---

Written By: Bill Styczynski

Bill Styczynski is the president of Studio21 Architects, as well as an architect in his own right. Every month, Bill writes an article for the Studio Pages newsletter about design topics that he believes will be informative, helpful reads for all of our clients, established and potential. ​