Tag Archives: #home elevator

On August 31, 2021 Our World Changed Forever.

On August 31 2021 I became a widow. It is not like I didn’t know it was coming . My Jim had been ill for over 3 years this time. Any one who spent time with him spoke about what a positive man he was. Although he was on dialysis 3 days week and undergoing chemotherapy, he was certain he was going to pull through. Or at least he told us he was.

We were two months short of celebrating our 54th anniversary. Yes, we were babies when we married. We grew up together. He was my best friend and we talked about everything.Daily, I think of something that I need to ask him or something that I want to share with him.

Unfortunately, many of you know how empty your heart and life is when you loose a spouse. We used to be Vicki and Jim or Jim and Vicki. Now it’s just Vicki.

I don’t know how you would come home to any empty house. It would be devastating. My care giving  responsibilities did not go away. Gratefully I was not alone. I still have two of the people that I care the most about to love me and be with me. Because we all shared this home Dot, Bryan and I could mourn together and support each other.

We along with Franci our home aid, were all be all able to be with Jim when he was not in treatment.. One of us was always with him. He dozed as he watched Soccer with Bryan.  Most nights he would drop in on Dot to say goodnight as he went to bed. He and I had good talks during our nap times We had planned on this being our “Forever Home” and it was for Jim and will be for the rest of us.

The elevators in the house and garage allowed him to stay here when he was so weak that he couldn’t walk up steps. I was able to help him shower and he did need the lift chairs toward the end. He loved being on the upper deck and could easily use his walker to access his favorite spot.

I am so glad that he and I planned ahead and renovated this house. I really didn’t expect him to go first. I am so grateful that we “finished” our home and were able to enjoy it together.

 

I started writing this blog to share our experiences  of 3 generations living together under 1 roof. I’ve been away for a while and I hope start working (interior deign) and writing more as the months go by. If you get anything positive from reading under1roof.live, please share this with a friend.

\               Vicki

Wake-up Call

 

In July of 2014, I took some downtime with Megan and Matt in Kansas City and  designed an  elevator location for our Longwood house. On the trip home, I was struck with severe abdominal pain. Major surgery fixed the problem.

 While recuperating at home, with my walker bumping along the walls, and showering being a major struggle, I had a great epiphany; we had to move from my beloved home. Adding an elevator would only be a little band aid and a costly one. Much more needed to be done to make our house not only barrier friendly to Bryan, but Jim and I were not getting any younger or more agile.

 We (Jim, Bryan and I) decided that if we were going to move, we should have a place for Grandma Dot, my fabulous, then 87-year-old mother, to join us. So our list of requirements grew; exterior space to add an addition to house an elevator, a suite large enough for Bryan to have privacy and a bath large enough to add a roll in shower, a two room suite for Grandma and two offices spaces for Jim and I to be able to work from home.

House hunting began that day. Thank God for our daughter, Megan, and Zillow! Megan was staying with us to help with my recovery, but I added “head house hunter” to her nursing duties. We looked at hundreds of homes online and if anything looked promising, Megan, Jim, Dot, and Bryan would join our realtor Janelle to check it out. I, of course, was still on drugs and pretty immobile since surgery was less two weeks prior.

As I reflect on those weeks, I must nominate my entire family for Sainthood. It all seemed perfectly natural to me. I needed to get my family in a safe, comfortable and accessible home as soon as possible.

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After just a few weeks, we stumbled upon this 4 bedroom 3 bath ranch. It required a lot of updating but it had the spaces to fit the needs of our multigenerational family.

Elevating our Lives

 

A Little Fancy French to denote that this door leads an Elevator 

 Just to recap… We are frantically searching for a home to accommodate our multi-generational family with accessibility issues.  We require an elevator, 2 offices, 3 accessible bathrooms, a space for my  the 88 year young mother, a suite for our 44 year old son who is battling ALS and a guest area for our Kansas City kids. Did I mention that we have a limited budget?

Introduction (click on introduction to check out our story from the beginning)

Between our realtor and Zillow, we had probably looked at over 100 houses. Since I was recovering from major surgery just 3 weeks prior and it was” Kansas August Hot”, I was discouraged. Our daughter, Megan,  was still “visiting” from Kansas City to help her crazy Mom recoup and find a new home. (So thankful for her and husband Matt)

 

 This is the first view  that I had of the Plum Tree house. I fell in love with the view but it also showed great potential for us to be able to install an elevator built with bulk on the exterior of the house and not take up any interior square footage. Yeah! Although the décor was not my style, it is my training to look for potential and this scored a 10! 

The open entry gives every one plenty of space to move around once you mange to get into the home

The addition of the elevator was by far the most costly and valuable part of our renovation. The value it adds to our home can not compare to the value it adds to our lives. The members of the Access Elevator http://www.accesselevatorinc.com/ team were amazing.