If you plan to stay in your own house for the long haul, a new kitchen matters less than you'd think. What helps more is walking through the place you already know with a clear eye, fixing the handful of things that trip you up, and deciding ahead of time who helps with what.

This is that walk-through, room by room, followed by the everyday jobs that keep a house running. Use the parts that fit your house and skip the rest. You know your knees, your stairs, and your habits better than any list does.

Start at the front door

Trouble at home tends to start in ordinary places: the porch step, the hallway at night, the bathroom floor. So begin where you come and go.

  1. Stand at the curb and look at your walk. Is there a step with no rail, a crack the tree roots lifted, a spot that's dark after six in the evening this time of year?
  2. Make sure the porch light works and the house number is easy to read from the street, in case anyone ever needs to find you in a hurry.
  3. Put a sturdy chair or bench just inside the door for taking shoes on and off.
  4. Keep a bowl or hook for keys in the same spot every time.
  5. Hang a calendar by the door with appointments, trash day, and who's coming when.
An older man sets his keys in a bowl on the entry table by his front door, beside a lamp, a chair for putting on shoes, and a wall calendar with the Sovereign Serenity Care logo.

Hallways and stairs

  1. Look at every rug. If it slides, curls at the corner, or catches your toe, it goes or it gets a rubber backing.
  2. Plug in night-lights along the path from the bedroom to the bathroom. The cheap plug-in kind from H-E-B works fine.
  3. If you have stairs, rails on both sides make a real difference. Give each rail a firm tug. If it gives, have it fixed.
  4. Keep the stairs clear, including the laundry basket waiting to go up.

The kitchen

  1. Move the things you use every day to the shelves between your hip and your shoulder. The skillet, the coffee, the good plates. The turkey roaster can live up high.
  2. Get rid of the wobbly step stool. If something lives up high, it can wait for a visitor or move down.
  3. Check that you can read the stove knobs without your glasses, or mark the "off" position with a dot of bright nail polish.
  4. Clean out the fridge every week on the same day. It's easier to notice the milk going off when it's a habit.

The bathroom

This is the room worth the most care. Grab bars by the toilet and in the shower, a non-slip mat, and a shower chair if standing gets tiring are the usual starting points. A handheld shower head helps more people than they expect.

If you'd like help in the bathroom without it feeling strange, our post on setting up bathroom help without making it awkward goes into the details.

The bedroom

  1. Sit on the edge of your bed. Your feet should rest flat on the floor with your knees about level with your hips. If the bed is too high or too low, it's a fixable problem.
  2. Put a lamp you can reach from bed, so you never cross a dark room to find the switch.
  3. Keep a glass of water, your glasses, and your phone on the nightstand.
  4. Keep slippers with a back and a grippy sole right by the bed. Socks on a wood floor at two in the morning are a bad combination.
A tidy bedroom with a lamp lit on the nightstand, a glass of water, reading glasses, and a notebook with the Sovereign Serenity Care logo, slippers by the bed and a night-light by the door.

Laundry, garage, and the rest of the house

  1. If the washer is in the garage, check the step down into it and the light switch by the door.
  2. Test the smoke detectors and write the date on the battery. Pick a day you'll remember, like the day the clocks change.
  3. Know where your water shutoff and breaker box are. Before the next hard freeze, ask someone to show you how to cover the outdoor faucets.
  4. Change the air conditioner filter, or have someone do it, on a schedule. Austin summers are long.

The daily jobs

Then there are the jobs that keep a house going. Go down this list and be honest about which ones still feel easy and which ones you've been putting off.

  • Cooking a meal you actually want to eat.
  • Getting groceries home and put away.
  • Laundry, especially carrying the basket.
  • Changing the sheets.
  • Sorting mail and paying bills.
  • Keeping track of pills and refills.
  • Getting to appointments, the pharmacy, and church.
  • Bathing and getting dressed on a stiff morning.
  • Taking out the trash and recycling on the right day.
  • Seeing someone to talk to most days.

You don't need to give up any job you still enjoy. The question is which ones are costing you more energy than they're worth.

A few minutes of movement each morning makes most of those jobs easier. Our 10-minute morning mobility routine is a gentle place to start, and it's fine to check with your doctor first.

Decide who helps with what

Once you've marked the hard ones, think about who could take them. A neighbor might take the trash cans to the curb. A grandson might change the air filter twice a year. Some jobs are better handed to someone who comes on a schedule.

That's where we come in for a lot of people in and around Austin. Our caregivers help with bathing, dressing, meals, light housekeeping, laundry, medication reminders, and company. They can also drive your car or take you in theirs for errands, or go with you in a rideshare. You decide which jobs and which hours. Our caregivers are trained to be proactive, so if the bathroom rug starts sliding again, they'll notice and say so.

If you're curious what an ordinary visit looks like, read what a caregiver actually does during a visit. And if the idea of help makes you worry about losing say over your own home, it's still your house is worth a read.

Pick one thing this week

Don't try to fix the whole house at once. Pick the one item on this list that made you wince, and deal with that one this week. Then come back to the list next month.

If you'd like someone to go through it with you, you can book a free in-home consultation on our booking page or call us at (512) 888-9105.