Renovating to Stay: Future-Proofing an Auckland Home

That's the idea behind an ageing in place renovation. Forget the hospital fit-out: it's a set of decisions, most of them invisible, that let you stay in the house you've just paid to renovate for as long as you want to. If you plan to keep your Auckland home for 15 years or more, build the future-proofing into this renovation, because it costs least while the walls are open. For the wider picture of what a renovation here costs and when it needs consent, start with the Superior Renovations overview of Auckland renovation costs, consents and trends. This article goes deeper on one question it only touches: how to plan a renovation for the person you'll be at 75, not just the person you are now.

It's written for owners planning a renovation to stay put, and for adult children working out what a parent's house needs. Where a change touches structure or consent, we say so, and Auckland Council or a Licensed Building Practitioner (LBP) confirms your scope.

Why future-proofing belongs in this renovation, not the next one

Most of the expense in an ageing-in-place change is access, not materials. Lever handles cost the same as knobs from most tapware suppliers. What costs money is cutting into a finished wall, relining it, stopping it and repainting it.

We see the arithmetic on our own jobs. Widening a doorway during a full house renovation adds about $80 to $150 per opening when the framing is already exposed. Across a typical Auckland renovation, the whole set of small accessibility decisions (a flush-threshold shower, wider doorways, lever handles, a chair-height power point) usually comes to under $1,500. Our estimate is that retrofitting the same items later costs roughly ten times that.

There's a second reason. A lot of Auckland's housing wasn't designed with this in mind at all. A 1970s brick-and-tile in Pakuranga, a villa in Grey Lynn or a split-level on the North Shore can each be hard work for anyone with a bad knee, never mind a walking frame. You don't have to fix all of it. But a renovation is the right time to decide which parts you'd struggle with at 80, and to deal with those first.

You don't have to be planning for your own old age to want this. The same decisions help the parent who visits at Christmas, the teenager on crutches after a rugby injury and the friend recovering from a hip replacement.

Getting in and out: entries, steps and level changes

Start at the front door, because a house you can't get into easily is a house you'll eventually have to leave. Walk the route from where you park to the kitchen bench and count every step, lip and change of floor level on the way.

The front entry

On a sloping section, the front door can sit several steps above the drive. If the renovation includes landscaping or a new deck, ask your designer whether a gentler route is possible: wider, shallower steps with a firm handrail on at least one side, or a path that brings you to a door at grade. A covered landing, where you can put the shopping down out of the rain, is worth planning too.

Thresholds between rooms and to the deck

Inside, look for raised thresholds between rooms and a step down to the lounge or the deck. A level threshold to the deck improves indoor-outdoor flow as well as access. A level threshold at an external door has to be detailed for weathertightness, so it belongs on the drawings and with your LBP before anyone starts cutting. The door, the deck height and the cladding junction all have to work together.

Stairs

In a two-storey house, a second handrail, good lighting at the top and bottom, and contrast on the nosings make a real difference. If a stair lift might be needed one day, plan a power point nearby now.

Doorways and hallways: the width you can't easily add later

Door width is the clearest case for doing it now. A 760mm interior door feels fine until you're using a walker or carrying a laundry basket past someone. Moving to 820mm doors while the framing is open is one of the cheapest future-proofing upgrades there is.

Prioritise the doors on the everyday route: front door, main bedroom, main bathroom or ensuite, kitchen and the door to the deck. Hallway width matters as much as the door. A wide door off a narrow hall with a tight turn doesn't help much, so ask your designer to check the turning space at the end of each passage as well as the opening.

A few details matter alongside the width:

• Lever door handles instead of round knobs, which need grip and a twist.
• Sliding or cavity sliders where a swinging door would block a small bathroom.
• Bathroom doors that open outwards or slide, so nobody gets stuck behind a door if someone falls against it.
• Flush floor transitions between rooms, with no raised timber strips to catch a foot.

One caution. Widening an opening in a load-bearing wall is structural work, and structural work needs an LBP and, in most cases, a building consent. Your designer will confirm which walls are load-bearing before anything is priced.

The bathroom: plan it for the person you'll be at 75

The bathroom is where planning ahead pays off most. It's small, hard, often wet and used every day. We've written a full guide to this room, and Superior Renovations' accessible bathroom guide covers the fittings, layouts and NZS 4121:2001 in detail. Here are the decisions that matter most when you're renovating to stay.

A shower you walk into

A shower tray with even a 50mm to 75mm lip means stepping over an edge while you're wet. A level-entry (hobless) shower removes the step. A flush-threshold shower costs roughly the same as a stepped one in a bathroom renovation, sometimes slightly more for the waterproofing detail. Whether your floor can take one depends on the subfloor, the drain position and the fall to the waste, so have it assessed before you commit. In older villas with suspended timber floors, a very low shower base with a 25mm to 40mm lip is sometimes the more sensible answer.

A good example is the walk-in wet-area bathroom we rebuilt in Westmere in October 2020. It wasn't designed as an accessible bathroom. The owners wanted somewhere warm, not clinical. The room was built around a large walk-in shower zone with no tray lip to step over, divided from the rest of the room by custom-cut glass rather than a bulky enclosure, with the whole wet area waterproofed before a tile went down. It shows that a shower you can walk straight into can be the feature of the room rather than a concession. The photos show the finished bathroom from the doorway (left) and the wet-area floor with its hand-held shower (right).

Blocking behind the lining

You can't screw a grab rail into plasterboard and expect it to hold. Installing backing boards behind the gib during a standard bathroom renovation costs roughly $200 to $400 and means rails can go in later without opening the walls. We use 18mm plywood behind the lining in the likely rail positions: at the shower entry, inside the shower, beside the toilet and beside the vanity. NZS 4121:2001 sets grab rails to withstand at least 1,100N, which is why they need solid fixing.

Heights, surfaces and taps

• A comfort-height toilet at 460mm to 480mm to the seat, rather than the standard 400mm to 420mm.
• A wall-hung vanity, which can be set at any height and leaves knee space if someone ever needs to sit at the basin.
• Slip-rated floor tiles: we specify R10 minimum for the bathroom floor and R11 in the shower. Choosing R11 over R9 adds nothing to the cost.
• Lever tapware and a hand-held shower on a slide rail, so the shower works seated or standing.

None of these make the room look any different today. They make it work later.

A kitchen that works sitting down as well as standing

The standard New Zealand bench height is 900mm, and for most people that's right. The question for an ageing-in-place kitchen is reach and clearance rather than bench height alone. Our designers' guide to NZ kitchen measurements notes that BRANZ universal design guidance recommends a height-adjustable bench in the 620mm to 900mm range where accessibility is on the horizon, and that a kitchen used by a wheelchair user needs around 1,500mm of clear manoeuvring space. Confirm that figure for your own project with your designer or an LBP.

Practical changes that cost little at design stage:

• Drawers instead of low cupboards. Pulling a drawer out is easier than kneeling to reach the back of a cupboard.
• A wall oven at a height you can reach without bending, with a bench beside it to put hot dishes on.
• The most-used storage between hip and shoulder height, with fewer high cupboards you'd need a step to reach.
• Lever or single-lever mixers, and good task lighting under the wall units.
• Wider walkways where the kitchen is also the route through the house.

Bring these up at the first design meeting. Once the cabinetry is manufactured, they're expensive to change.

Switches, lighting and floors: small specs that add up

Electrical and flooring choices are the cheapest part of future-proofing, and they're easy to forget because they sit at the end of the specification.

Power and switches

Put some power points at chair height in the lounge and bedroom so nobody has to bend to floor level. Place light switches where a hand naturally reaches on entering a room, and add two-way switching in hallways and stairs so you're never crossing a dark space to reach a switch. If the house is being rewired anyway, this is the time to add them. All new circuits need a registered electrician and a Certificate of Compliance.

Lighting and contrast

As eyes age, telling one surface from another in low light gets harder. An all-white bathroom with white fixtures can make the edge of the shower hard to see. Contrast at key points (a darker floor tile at a threshold, a grab rail in a colour that stands out from the wall) costs nothing extra if it's decided at design stage. Low-level sensor lighting between the bedroom and the bathroom helps with night-time trips.

Floors

Choose flooring with continuous levels between rooms, matte rather than glossy finishes in wet areas, and no loose rugs in the plan. Hard, slip-resistant floors through the main living areas also suit walkers and wheelchairs better than thick carpet.

When the house needs a bedroom and bathroom on one level

Some houses can't be future-proofed without a bigger move. If every bedroom is upstairs, or the only bathroom is up a flight of stairs, the long-term answer may be a bedroom and bathroom on the entry level.

There are usually three routes: convert an existing ground-floor room (a rumpus, study or dining room) into a bedroom with an ensuite, convert an attached garage, or extend. Each route carries different consent and cost implications. Adding a bathroom where there wasn't one, moving drainage or building an extension all need a building consent, and structural work is Restricted Building Work for an LBP. Sonder Architecture's guide to building consent for renovations sets out where that line falls for kitchens, bathrooms, walls and extensions in Auckland. Auckland Council confirms the requirements for your specific scope.

For budgeting, our published figures for a ground-floor house extension in Auckland are $2,000 to $5,500 per square metre, with a standard 25m² to 45m² addition at $160,000 to $280,000. Converting an existing room generally costs less than extending, because the structure is already there.

What future-proofing adds to an Auckland renovation budget

Planned in from the start, not a lot. The expensive version is doing it twice.

• Small whole-house decisions (wider doorways, lever handles, flush-threshold shower, chair-height power points): usually under $1,500 across a typical Auckland renovation, with doorways at about $80 to $150 each when the framing is exposed.
• Bathroom blocking for future grab rails: roughly $200 to $400 during a standard bathroom renovation.
• Accessible bathroom safety essentials (grab rails, non-slip flooring, overheight toilet seat, lever taps): $5,000 to $10,000.
• A targeted safety renovation (new slip-resistant tile, overheight toilet suite, accessible vanity, rails with backing, shower seat): $10,000 to $18,000.
• A full wet-room conversion of a 5m² to 6m² bathroom: $28,000 to $38,000, rising to $38,000 to $55,000+ with plumbing relocation or structural changes.

The accessible bathroom figures are GST-inclusive ranges from our completed Auckland projects, not quotes. For comparison, a mid-range bathroom renovation in Auckland runs $26,000 to $35,000, and a full home renovation $80,000 to $160,000 at mid-range. To test your own room, rough out a future-proofed bathroom in our cost calculator and then add the specific items above.

If the renovation is needed because of a disability rather than general planning ahead, check whether funding applies. Disability Support Services can fund home modifications such as level-access showers and ramps for eligible people, and an income and cash asset test may apply where modifications cost more than $8,076 including GST. For complex needs, an occupational therapist's assessment before design gives your designer a written brief to work from.

Frequently asked questions

What is an ageing in place renovation?

It's a renovation planned so the house still works as your mobility changes: step-free routes, wider doorways, a walk-in shower, blocking for grab rails and reachable storage. Most of it is invisible today. The point is to make those choices while walls and floors are open, rather than retrofitting finished rooms later.

How much does it cost to future-proof a home during a renovation?

On our jobs, the small whole-house decisions usually add under $1,500 to a typical Auckland renovation, and bathroom backing boards roughly $200 to $400. A full accessible wet-room bathroom is a bigger project at $28,000 to $38,000 for a 5m² to 6m² room.

How wide should doorways be for ageing in place?

Moving from 760mm interior doors to 820mm is the practical upgrade we recommend during a renovation, at about $80 to $150 per opening when the framing is already exposed. Wheelchair use needs more clearance, so get specific advice from your designer and an occupational therapist.

Do I need building consent for accessibility changes?

Like-for-like fixture swaps are usually exempt. Moving drainage, adding a bathroom, installing a new tiled wet area or altering a load-bearing wall generally needs consent, and structural work must be done or supervised by an LBP. Check your specific scope with Auckland Council before work starts.

If you're planning a renovation to stay in your Auckland home for the long haul, bring your list of the rooms you'd struggle with at 80 and we'll help you decide what to do now and what can wait. You can see finishes and fittings in person at our showroom at 16B Link Drive, Wairau Valley, or find more at superiorrenovations.co.nz. Book a free consultation and walk us through the house as you'll use it in twenty years.

References

1. Disability Support Services: What home modifications we can fund
2. Auckland Council: Building consents