You’ve probably already told your spouse you only want a shower.
Most of my empty nester clients have. After thirty years of bath toys lined up along the tub, a walk-in shower feels like something you’ve earned, and I’ve never once tried to talk anybody out of it.
Then that same couple asks me to keep a bathtub somewhere in the house anyway.
Not for them, but for grandkids. Some of whom haven’t even been born yet.
I love that request because it starts with who’s going to walk into the house later, instead of only who’s going to live in it today. That’s some of the sharpest design thinking I see at this stage of life.
The trouble is, most people apply that thinking to the grandkids and stop there.
They design for the family they are today and maybe the grandchildren they hope will visit one day, without stopping to think about the other versions of their family that could be living under that same roof ten or fifteen years from now.
And if you’re building what you hope will be your last house, those future families deserve a seat at the design table too.
The Four-Family Test
When I’m working through a custom home with somebody who intends to stay for a long time, I want them to think about four versions of their family.
1. The family you are today, with your current routines, work, kids, hobbies and the way you actually use a house now.
2. The family you’ll become when the kids leave, when rooms change purpose, half the upstairs may sit empty, and the way you spend an ordinary Tuesday can look completely different.
3. The family that comes back, because grown children don’t always leave in a straight line. They change jobs, move cities, save for homes, have children of their own and sometimes need somewhere familiar to land for a while.
4. The family that needs more from the house than it does today, whether that’s an aging parent coming to stay or you reaching a point where stairs, narrow doorways and badly placed rooms matter more than they did when the plans were drawn.
You can’t predict exactly which version will show up or when. But you can make sure the house doesn’t fight you when it does.
That’s the difference between trying to predict the future and simply designing with your eyes open.
“Forever Home” Is The Most Expensive Phrase In Custom Home Building
Nearly every one of my clients says it, and I understand exactly what’s meant by it. In three decades and 240 builds, I can’t remember anybody sitting across from me and saying, “We figure we’ll be out of here in a couple of years.“
People put this much time, money and thought into a custom home because they expect to stay.
So let me agree with you and warn you in the same breath.
You probably will stay. What catches good people is the assumption underneath that statement: that the family staying in the house will look anything like the family that sat down and drew the plans.
I know that one first hand.
I built my own home when we had three kids and figured we were done. Then we had twins. Then we had one more. Suddenly we had six kids living in a house designed around a family of five, and eventually we had to sell it and move.
The builder who got that wrong was me.
That’s why I spend so much time asking questions about where life might be five, ten or fifteen years from now. Not because I know what’s going to happen. I don’t. But I’ve been doing this long enough to know that life almost never stays frozen at the exact point where the floor plan was approved.
The Two People Almost Nobody Puts On The Plan
There are two people in particular I want clients to think about before their plans are finalized.
The first is a grown child who comes home for a while. The second is a parent who reaches the point where stairs aren’t practical anymore.
Down here, family comes back through the front door all the time. Kids leave and come back. Parents get older. Grandkids arrive. A guest room becomes somebody’s room for six months or two years.
It’s the ordinary shape of a long life in one house, and most of it costs very little to accommodate while the design is still sitting on paper.
Take Len and Amy, for example. They came to me at age 74 after living in a two-story home with a games room nobody had walked into in years. When they looked at one of my models, Len took the entire second floor off it.
They asked for walk-in showers instead of tubs because the family visiting them was getting older too, and the guest rooms went where Amy’s mother could stay without fighting a staircase.
A year after moving in, Amy told me she doesn’t sit there wishing they’d done anything differently.
That’s about the best sentence you can hear from somebody who just built their last house.
Now, you may be sitting there thinking you’re sixty-five and have no intention of designing yourself a nursing home. I understand that, and I’m not suggesting you should.
Nobody walking into your home needs to know that a doorway was drawn a little wider because somebody thought ahead. Nobody has to look at a downstairs guest suite and think “aging in place.” Good long-term design usually doesn’t announce itself.
It simply keeps working.
The Regret You Can’t Renovate Your Way Out Of
This is where those early decisions start getting expensive.
Moving one light switch after the drywall goes up can run about $2,000.00 and two weeks of rework. I had a client decide late in his build that he wanted a glass wall in his office. By the time that decision was made, it cost him more than $10,000.00 extra compared with making the same choice on paper, before you even count the delay and another month of paying for two households.
Those are painful mistakes, but at least they’re fixable.
The most expensive decisions are often the ones you can’t simply pay somebody to reverse later.
You can’t undesign a staircase. You can’t build a one-story and a two-story house. You can’t suddenly decide fifteen years from now that the downstairs should have been capable of functioning on its own if the entire plan depends on rooms upstairs.
At some point the slab goes down, the walls go up, and decisions that once looked like pencil marks become concrete, lumber, plumbing and steel.
That’s why I would much rather make you think hard for an extra hour during design than watch you spend years working around something nobody thought to ask about.
Seven Questions To Answer Before The Slab Goes Down
Before I considered a long-term custom home ready to build, I’d want clear answers to these seven questions:
1. Tub, shower or both? If you only want showers now, where will a bathtub live for grandchildren, future buyers or whoever else may need one later?
2. One story or two? Don’t answer only for the family climbing those stairs today. Think about the version of your family that may be living there ten or fifteen years from now.
3. If it’s two stories, where do the stairs land? Are kids constantly moving through the front of the house or past a quiet office, and would a second staircase solve a problem worth paying to solve?
4. Where does the study sit in relation to where everybody gathers? A peaceful home office on an empty floor plan can become a very different place once kids, grandkids and everyday family traffic show up.
5. Can the downstairs run on its own with the upstairs closed off? If you become empty nesters and only use the second floor for guests, does the first floor still give you everything you need?
6. If a grown child comes home, or a parent can’t manage stairs, is there already somewhere sensible for them to live? You don’t need to build for every possible future. You do want to know whether an obvious possibility has somewhere to go.
7. Does every bedroom need its own bathroom? Think about how your family will use the rooms now, how that may change as children grow, and what a future luxury buyer may expect when the house eventually changes hands.
There isn’t one correct answer to all seven.
That’s the point.
A good design process isn’t somebody telling you that every house needs two staircases, wider doors or a bathtub in a particular room. It’s somebody putting the trade-offs in front of you early enough that you still have the freedom to choose.
You can’t design for everything, and you can’t foolproof a house. Anybody telling you differently is selling you something. What you can do is look beyond the family sitting at the kitchen table today and ask whether the house you’re drawing can keep serving the people you’re likely to become.
Your Next Step – Before Your Plans Are Finalized
If something as ordinary as choosing between one story and two can determine whether your house still works for your family fifteen years from now, what other decisions look harmless on paper today but become painfully expensive once the build begins?
There are eight mistakes in particular I see homeowners make again and again, and most of them don’t look dangerous when the decision is being made.
That’s why I’ve put together a free guide:
The Texan Home Building Playbook
Inside, you’ll find the 8 most common and costly mistakes homeowners make when building a custom home in Texas, including the decisions that rarely look expensive on a quote but have a habit of becoming very expensive once you’re living with them.
Download your free copy before your plans are finalized.
Because the questions nobody thinks to ask during design are usually the ones you end up answering with your checkbook, your floor plan or the next twenty years of your life.
Read about the journey of Victor. Victor Myers Custom Homes proudly partners with NAHB, TAB and Dallas BA.
Multigenerational home design in Texas:
questions homeowners ask
What does multigenerational home design mean for a custom home?
It means designing for more than the family sitting at your kitchen table today. Victor Myers plans around four versions of a family: who you are now, who you become once the kids leave, the grown child who comes back for a while, and a parent or homeowner who eventually needs more from the house. Getting this right on paper is far cheaper than fixing it later in a custom home build.
Should I design my custom home for grandchildren I do not have yet?
Many empty nester clients ask for a bathtub purely for future grandchildren, even with no walk-in shower plans of their own. That is smart multigenerational thinking. The same logic should extend further, to a grown child moving back home or a parent who eventually cannot manage stairs, not just visiting grandkids.
What is the four-family test in custom home design?
It is a way of checking a floor plan against four versions of your family: today’s family, the empty-nest version, the version with a grown child back home, and the version that needs easier access as you age. A plan that works for all four rarely costs much more, but it has to be considered before construction starts, not after.
How much does it cost to change a decision after construction starts?
Far more than making it on paper. Moving a single light switch after drywall can run around two thousand dollars and two weeks of rework, and a late-stage design change like an added glass wall has cost one Victor Myers client more than ten thousand dollars in North Texas. Some decisions, like a staircase, cannot be undone at any price.
What questions should I ask before finalizing a multigenerational home design?
Ask whether the home works as one story or two for the family you may become, where a bathtub could live if needed later, whether the downstairs can function on its own, and whether a grown child or aging parent already has somewhere sensible to live. Our custom home building FAQ covers more of these questions.
Planning a custom home in Flower Mound, Argyle or the surrounding Denton County area? Contact Victor Myers Custom Homes or call Victor on 214-636-6829.
