Ideally, creating a kitchen that allows you to age in place should start well before it’s needed. Consider incorporating key features whenever you’re doing renovations to your kitchen. If you think that you might sell before retiring, remember that such features add overall value to the home, particularly as the U.S. population gets older.
If your senior years have arrived or a renovation is not in the budget, there are plenty of helpful retrofits as well. Tired hands will benefit from changing round faucet knobs to lever-style ones or, better yet, a single-handle or hands-free automatic anti-scald faucet. If you have a counter-mounted soap dispenser, add an extension tube to allow it to draw from a gallon bottle of soap under the counter, reducing the need for regular refills. This works for automated soap dispensers—another potential upgrade—as well.
