Tips or articles on building a multigenerational home?

[EBeth0000]

There was an article in Mothering some time back about families who did this. But here's the story
My husband and I bought a 2-bedroom ranch in our dream neighborhood. We bought for the large lot, the good long-term home values, the centrality of the neighborhood to our downtown region and quicker commute, etc.
We don't believe in humongous homes, and our home has great living space, but the 2-bedroom thing is becoming a bit of a squeeze as I work from home, and we have a 1 year old and a 3 year old and we'd like 3-4 children. The baby shares our bedroom for now, no problem, and we have no problem with the kids bunking up for a few years, but in middle school, with a boy and a girl, we may feel differently!

We had been looking at a small add-on, just 1-2 small bedrooms on our main floor, just to give us 1 more kids room/guest room and/or a home office/workroom. We wanted to replace our windows and get new insulation at that time as well, to improve effeciency. If we went up, we wanted to replace our roof with more sustainable, energy efficient roof such as a living green roof or solar paneling.

My parents are aging (I am younger than most with parents my age, I was a late-in-life baby) and my brother lives several states away. My parents are interested in selling their current 4-bedroom suburban home and moving closer to us, and using the remainder of the proceeds from the sale of their home to fix up their cabin which is 1.5 hours away to retire there. They want to be up here during the week to provide child care and go for 4-day weekends to spend at the cabin.

They started to look at condos nearby but 1) most condos near here cost more than their current house is worth! and 2) the condo association fees can be as much as $300 a month! So they are talking about contributing 1/3 to 1/2 of the proceeds from the sale of their house to our planned home addition, to renovate bigger, including a small apartment for them to live in, with shared communal living space.
Does anyone have links to articles or design books with ideas about how to do it? We don't want a monster house, and we are committed to building green, but we do want the space planned intelligently so 4 adults and 4 children can live under one roof without serious boundary issues!
We are all open to the idea, and are excited, but before we can find an architect who understands what we want, we need to get our ideas firmed up. I know the smart MDC mamas will have resources--throw 'em at me!

[woodchick]

I am nearly finished reading Together Again: A Creative Guide to Successful Multigenerational Housing. You should definitely check it out. It covers a ton of stuff from finances to privacy to building to taxes.

We're just starting to look into this for our family and I found this to be a good first reference.

[velochic]

My mother lives with us. I have no architectural advice, but when you speak about the boundary issues... I don't want to be discouraging, but make sure that that becomes the priority in your planning.

[jentilla]

This is becoming more and more popular and I know a contractor who says this is his number one request right now. I also know a woman who did this, but they actually sought out a house that would already accommodate them. I would talk to several contractors.

[Thystle]

Originally Posted by woodchick

I am nearly finished reading Together Again: A Creative Guide to Successful Multigenerational Housing. You should definitely check it out. It covers a ton of stuff from finances to privacy to building to taxes.

We're just starting to look into this for our family and I found this to be a good first reference.

Ooh I am going to have to read this! Thanks!!!


Good luck OP! If you find anything good please let us know!

[texmati]

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[mamabutterfly]

nak... My MIL lives w/us, & i love it. one big reason it works is that we have totally separate apts. she also happens to be easy going and lovely and great w/my kids.
But even with how well we get along, the separate kitchens is a VERY big help, i'm convinced. i think that would be hardest to share. even though hers is a mini, apt. kitchen. things like Thanksgiving we do in mine.
also separate entrances madea big difference for us. it's important that the older generation feels independent in this situation, i think. and less sense of having to check on each others' comings and goings.
We also have separate phone lines, but share a few other utilities.

i hope it works out well for you. best of luck!

[LianneM]

Thanks for the book link! We are looking into something like this as well.

[Mama2Cesca]

Hello,

My mil "lives with us". We built a house with a ground floor mil appt. We share an entrance hall(and guest toilet) and also share the laundry room. She has a living room with a small kitchen in it, a bathroom, a hall with a big closet area, and a decent sized bedroom(enough space for her sewing stuff). We made sure that her doors were wide enough to be able to accomodate a wheelchair if that would ever become needed. Also there is a fold down chair in the shower and it is large enough so someone can assist her if needed eventually(she is almost 75 and still good now). She also stores some things in our attic. The door to the basement is also in the hall and she stores food items, etc down there.

We took a long time coming up with our floor plan and are very happy with it now! We put locks on all the downstairs doors. MIL can lock herself in her area if she wants privacy. We do knock(and the kids are supposed to lock but the five year old often forgets) though. Downstairs we have one big room(kitchen, dining, living room) and we can lock ourselves in there. My MIL always knocks. Now we had issues with this at first. She would just knock and walk in right away. Sometimes she wouldn't even knock very loud and it was scary. Now she knows that she had to knock and wait for someone to say "come in". I really had to make it understood to her that we could be in the middle of a fight, something important, having sex(haha). I really require my privacy. She requires much less privacy apparently so assumed that I was the same way at first. One day she was really bored and asked if I had anything for her to do. She loves to iron(yes she is crazy) so told her if she wanted to help that would be great. She went upstairs where I kept the iron. I iron in our guestroom/office. No problem. A few days later dh and I went away. We came and mil was upstairs in that room ironing. It scared me to come home and hear someone upstairs. I didn't like her being upstairs without asking especially when no one was home. If she needs to go to the attic we have asked that she let us know in advance. It is normal I think as you have to go upstairs where all the bedrooms are of course to get to the attic.

We had a lot of ideas about how things would be. DH had the idea in his head that we would eat dinner together most of the time. After the first week of her moving in(we moved into the house two months earlier) she has taken all of her meals on her own. Her diet is very different then ours. She is very traditional Belgian when it comes to food and we eat more of a variety. She likes to eat at exactly 6pm. My dh isn't even home until 7pm most nights! I also love just a dinner with the four of us. Now my dd is about to turn 10 and she will come over to our part for a birthday dinner and pie on Sunday. When we have easter dinner or whatever she will also be invited over to our part.

My mil doesn't drive but is able to take the bus to get out. She used to live in the middle of city(she had a hat store) so she likes to go back to visit. We do take her groccery shopping. I buy all the "heavy" or big items. Milk, water, laundry detergent, toilet paper, etc in big amounts to store in the basement. She gives money towards this as well as towards the house expenses.

With the children things are mostly great. I am an American married to a Belgian and living in Belgium. I do speak Dutch however it isn't so easy to help my oldest with her homework. As dh gets home so late my mil is a GREAT help with this! My oldest also enjoys knitting with her. Both children enjoy playing board games or cards with her! My youngest is very intense so having her spend some time with her Oma is a welcome break for me. Now Oma does spoil them of course still. However the adults talked about this in advance and it has to be limited. Before oma lived here when the kids would visit her(once a week or once every two weeks) they would get all kinds of candy and cookies. I didn't mind because the rest of the time they ate very healthy. With her living next door it wouldn't be a good thing if she would give them cookies and candy every day! She keeps plenty of fresh fruit in her kitchen for the kids and buys them a special treat once a week which is fine. My youngest sometimes just does not want to listen and has gotten mad at me and run over to Oma. Oma is wise enough to not interfer and send her back to me. I wouldn't be happy if she got involved with that sort of thing or was critical about how I was dealing with things.

Sometimes I get tired of dh going over to his moms several times a night. However when she didn't live with us I would get tired of him calling her every night. He is an only child and his mom is a widow so I would never tell him that this annoys me. I also love to play music really loud but do not want to do that when she is home(and she only leaves like once a week for a few hours). She would never say anything or care.

A few times she has kept an eye on the kids while we went away. It is very convenient. One time we had to go somewhere at night and that was fine. She just kept the door open of her living room so she could hear if a child was calling or crying. Much nicer then having to pack an overnight bag, drive them to Oma's, and then have to pick up the next day. We are also likely going to try for another baby soon. Hopefully she will be able to watch the baby when I am at work.

We did build "green" I suppose. The house is very much insultated and the windows are the best we could afford. The washing machine and toilets run off of rain water. My mil has a seperate thermostat. Older people tend to get cold faster. MIL keeps her part of the house heated to 70 or 72. We keep our heat at 60 most of the time. Our hot water heater is in the attic. We have a pump that circulates warm water around the house non stop. We built with an energy conscious architect and he thought this was the best thing for our situation. Otherwise you have to wait a few minutes with the water running especially on the bottom floor to get hot water.

Our biggest issue is that mil is a very insecure person. She will go to my dh and say that she thinks I am mad at her. This because I do go "visiting" with her. One time I came in the front door and went into my living room area as normal. That night she told Frank that she tried to tell me something in the hall but that I ran away. I never saw her or heard her in the hall. DH sometimes feels that he is put in the middle of our "women issues". He will get annoyed with me when after dinner I do not want to go with him into his mothers to sit. He says it stresses him out that I am not more friendly with his mother. It sometimes feels like he is trying to force me to be best friends with his mother though he tells me this isn't the case. She has made comments to him that I might prefer it if she would go rent an appt instead. Considering she sold her house(half of that house was dhs) and put her share of that house into that one it is a silly comment to make. We would need to sell this house in order to buy her out! I feel as though she is a neighbor from in an appt building. While I am not going to be rude to her I do not feel the need to visit with her daily. If she would want to move it isn't as though in an appt she would have the person from the appt next to her over each day. Plus she wouldn't have an outside area, would have to deal witih steps, etc.

Sorry for making this so long! I know I rambled a lot and some things might not make much sense. It does take time to adjust to this type of situation obviously! We talked about how things would be before we designed the house. I think we probably should have talked more. Though a lot of things you only can figure out when you are actually in the situation. For example she thought she would want a lot of privacy, to be on her own, etc and she seems like she is starved for company. I thought I would be a lot more "cool" with having relaxed boundries but have found that I am rather uptight!

Maggie

[Thystle]

Ok I read the book. It was ok. I REALLY wish they would have talked more about "younger" generations living with each other. The book was pretty heavy on grandparents/elderly. Which ofcourse the majority of people reading it would be looking for.


And a big part of the book was stories from families who did it, if that helps anyone.

[prairiesprite]

I don't know what your local ordinances are, but could you consider building a detatched "guest house"? It would allow for more privacy, and could serve another purpose (ie home office) if and when circumstances change. My parents built a mother-in-law suite on their house for my grandmother, but then she never moved in and they were stuck with it.

I know that does not solve your kid bedroom issue, though. We are going through the exact same process right now. Boy/girl sharing a room right now, but we will need to make some changes in the long run. The frustrating thing is that our house has plenty of square footage, but it is badly distributed (or, rather, not conducive to the way people live today). A lot of space is currently wasted by having both a "formal living room" and a "family room", typical for 60's-era ranch houses like ours. And the kitchen is tiny!

Although I am not sure whether she has directly addressed the multi-generational issue, I always recommend books by Sarah Susanka - are you familiar with "The Not-So-Big House"? She lays out some good ideas on how to better use the spaces in your home, and I think she has a renovation book, too.

Best,
prairiesprite

[A&A]

My only tip: Don't !!!!!!!!!!!

[cristeen]

We've discussed this as a possibility at times. A few things that came up for us:

Grandma has hobbies, and therefore needs her own space to work on them without worrying about children.
Grandma is late to bed/late to rise, and therefore needs her own living space so as not to disturb/be disturbed by the children.
Grandma has a dog and therefore needs a separate entrance so the dog can be let out to pee in the middle of the night.
Mommy likes to be naked, so there need to be ground rules about just walking in.
Grandma would need a small cooking space, although not a full kitchen. Some place where she can make a bowl of cereal, a piece of toast, a cup of tea and a glass of juice. Mommy cannot handle grandma mucking about in her kitchen all the time.
Grandma can spend hours in the bathroom at a time, so she needs her own. No sharing.

That's about as far as we got before abandoning the idea. But as is apparent from that list, we had some of the same concerns as the pp. A bedroom/bathroom suite would not be enough - a full apartment would be necessary in our situation. Even if it's just a 1 bedroom with a kitchenette.

Another thing to think about that the pp mentioned - storage. My grandma has spent 80 years accumulating treasures. She's might be willing to part with some, pack up others, but some of them she's going to need room to have with her.