Aging in Place

Aging in Place Design — Built Right the First Time, for Every Stage of Life

The best time to design for the future is before you need to.

Here’s what most aging in place conversations miss: the families who get it right aren’t the ones scrambling to retrofit a home after a fall or a diagnosis. They’re the ones who planned ahead — who added the suite before Mom needed it, who built the accessible bathroom before the walker arrived, who designed the addition with the future already in mind.

That’s the work we specialize in. Not patching an existing home around a problem that’s already arrived, but designing something new — a caregiver suite addition, a main-floor primary suite, a space purpose-built for independence and dignity — before the need becomes urgent. Because the design decisions that make a home genuinely livable for a lifetime are far easier to get right when you’re building something new than when you’re working backward through a house that was never designed with this in mind.

At Candid Home Design, accessible design isn’t a specialty we added to our service list. It’s threaded through everything we do — rooted in formal ADA and healthcare design training, shaped by years of aging-in-place remodels and accessible additions, and informed by a genuine belief that good design should serve every member of a family at every stage of life.

What Aging in Place Design Actually Means — and What It Doesn't

Aging in place design is not grab bars and ramps bolted onto a house that was never designed for them. Done well, it’s invisible. It’s a primary suite on the main floor that happens to have a zero-threshold shower and wider doorways. It’s a caregiver suite addition that feels like a natural part of the home’s architecture. It’s a layout that eliminates the stairs between sleeping and living without announcing that it was designed for someone who can’t manage stairs.

The goal is a home that works for the way your family lives today and continues to work as that changes — without ever looking like a medical accommodation or a compromise. Accessibility and beauty are not opposites. They’re a design problem, and design problems have elegant solutions.

We know this because we’ve spent our career solving them. From ADA-compliant healthcare environments to residential aging-in-place remodels to new additions designed for a family member moving in — we bring the same knowledge base and the same standard to every project.

Aging in Place Projects We Design

Caregiver Suite Additions

A caregiver suite addition creates dedicated living space for a professional caregiver within or attached to the home — providing proximity and immediate availability without the loss of privacy that comes from a caregiver sharing the main living areas. These suites typically include a private bedroom, bathroom, and sitting area, with considered access to both the main house and the family member being cared for.

Designing a caregiver suite well requires thinking carefully about adjacency and access: close enough to respond quickly, separated enough to maintain the dignity and privacy of both the family and the caregiver. We design these suites as genuine living spaces — comfortable, functional, and architecturally integrated with the home rather than tacked onto it.

Main-Floor Primary Suite Additions

The single most impactful aging-in-place project a family can undertake is often the simplest to describe: move the primary bedroom to the main floor. When climbing stairs becomes difficult — whether due to age, injury, illness, or a family member’s mobility limitations — a home with the primary suite on an upper level stops working. The solution isn’t to struggle with the stairs indefinitely. It’s to design a main-floor suite that eliminates the problem entirely.

We design main-floor primary suite additions that are complete, comfortable, and built to last a lifetime. An accessible bathroom with a roll-in or zero-threshold shower, properly sized for turning radius and future grab bar installation. Doorways designed to accommodate a wheelchair or walker without appearing clinical. Layouts that flow naturally from the main living areas and feel like the home always had this suite, rather than like something added after the fact.

These projects often involve structural work — expanding the footprint, modifying load-bearing walls, tying the new addition into the existing roofline. That’s exactly the kind of complexity we’re built for. The structural puzzle and the accessible design requirement aren’t separate problems; they’re one project, and we design them together.

Accessible Bathroom Design

The bathroom is where most aging-in-place design conversations begin — and where the most consequential design decisions are made. A standard bathroom is one of the most hazardous spaces in a home for someone with limited mobility. A well-designed accessible bathroom is one of the safest and most dignifying.

The difference is almost entirely in the design decisions made before construction starts: the size and configuration of the shower, the placement of future grab bar blocking in the walls, the type and threshold of the shower entry, the clearances around the toilet and vanity, the flooring material and its slip resistance. These decisions cost almost nothing to get right during design and can be enormously expensive to correct after the fact.

We design accessible bathrooms that meet or exceed ADA guidelines for residential use — not because every client will need a wheelchair-accessible bathroom today, but because designing for that standard now means the space will serve every member of the family well for decades, regardless of what changes.

Full Accessible Addition Design

Some projects bring together everything at once: a family adding onto their home so an aging parent can move in, a couple planning ahead for their own future, a family reconfiguring an entire main floor to eliminate barriers they’ve been working around for years. These full accessible addition projects are among the most complex and most rewarding residential design work we do.

They require holding a lot of variables simultaneously — structural, spatial, regulatory, and deeply personal. What does this family member need today? What will they need in five years, in ten? How does the new space connect to the existing home in a way that preserves both independence and connection? How does the accessible design integrate naturally into a home that should feel warm and lived-in, not clinical?

We’ve designed through all of these questions, many times. We know how to ask the right ones at the start of a project — and how to design the answers into the finished building.

Adult Care Home and Assisted Living Facility Design

Our accessible design work extends beyond single-family residential projects. We have experience designing adult care homes and small assisted living facilities — the residential-scale care environments that serve small groups of residents in a home-like setting rather than an institutional one.

These projects sit at the intersection of residential and commercial design, requiring careful attention to accessibility standards, egress requirements, bedroom and bathroom ratios, caregiver workflow, and the fundamental design goal of creating an environment that feels like a home rather than a facility. Dignity in design — giving residents a space that respects their humanity and supports their independence to the greatest degree possible — is the standard we hold every adult care home project to.

If you are planning an adult care home or small assisted living facility in Middle Tennessee or elsewhere in our service area, we’d welcome the conversation.

Why Designing Ahead Changes Everything

The families who struggle most with aging-in-place transitions are almost always the ones who didn’t plan for them. The parent who falls and suddenly can’t manage the stairs to the bedroom. The family that needs to move a loved one in quickly and realizes the house simply doesn’t have the right space. The couple who wants to age in their home but has spent years putting off the modifications that would make it possible.

The families who navigate these transitions most gracefully are the ones who built ahead of the need. Who added the main-floor suite while everyone was still healthy. Who designed the caregiver suite before a caregiver was required. Who made the accessible bathroom decisions during a planned remodel rather than an emergency renovation.

Designing ahead costs less, produces better outcomes, and eliminates the urgency and stress that makes reactive accessibility projects so difficult. It also means the design can be done right — integrated into the home with care and intention — rather than retrofitted under pressure.

We’re in the business of helping families think ahead. If you’re reading this before you need it, you’re already ahead of most. Let’s use that time well.

Our Accessible Design Background

Accessible design isn’t something we learned from a checklist. It’s the foundation our entire career was built on.

Kymber Hatfield, founder of Candid Home Design, began her career in a commercial design firm focused on healthcare environments — spaces where ADA compliance and accessible design weren’t optional features but the core design standard. That foundation — understanding how people with mobility limitations actually move through and use space — shaped every residential project that followed.

Across close to 300 completed projects in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Wyoming, and now Middle Tennessee, accessible and aging-in-place design has been a consistent thread: the seniors who needed to stay in their homes, the families adding space for a parent moving in, the adult care homes where residents deserved better than institutional design. We’ve designed all of it, and we’ve brought the same standard to every project — accessibility as a design quality, not a concession.

Why Families Choose Candid Home Design for Aging in Place Projects

Formal ADA and accessible design training rooted in healthcare design — not a residential add-on, but the foundation of our practice
Specialization in new addition design for aging in place — caregiver suites and main-floor primary suites built right from the start rather than retrofitted
Experience with adult care homes and small assisted living facilities
Close to 300 completed projects across multiple states — we’ve designed through every aging-in-place scenario a family is likely to face
Personal investment in multi-generational living — we understand why this matters because it matters to us too
Family-owned and operated, remote-ready — serving Greater Nashville and homeowners throughout the Southeast and beyond

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between aging in place design and accessible design?

Aging in place design focuses specifically on enabling someone to remain in their home comfortably and safely as they age — addressing the changes in mobility, strength, and sensory ability that come with getting older. Accessible design is the broader discipline that encompasses design for any mobility limitation or disability, at any age. The two overlap significantly, and the design principles that support aging in place are largely the same ones that support anyone with a mobility challenge — which is why designing for accessibility now serves every member of a household, for life.

When is the right time to start planning an aging in place remodel or addition?

The right time is before you need it. Aging in place design decisions made during a planned remodel or new addition cost a fraction of what emergency retrofits cost — and the results are dramatically better because they can be integrated into the design from the beginning rather than worked around existing constraints. If you’re already planning a remodel or addition for any reason, it’s worth bringing the accessibility conversation into that project now.

Does accessible design make a home look institutional or medical?

Not when it’s designed well. The features that make a home accessible — wider doorways, zero-threshold showers, open floor plans, lever hardware, well-placed lighting — are also features that make a home more comfortable and more beautiful for everyone. Our goal on every accessible design project is a finished space that feels warm, intentional, and completely at home in the house it’s part of — with no visible signal that it was designed for any specific need.

Can you design an accessible addition for a parent moving into our home?

Yes — this is one of our most common and most meaningful project types. We design caregiver suite additions and main-floor primary suites that give a family member their own complete, accessible living space within or attached to your home. We think through the independence and connection balance carefully, and we design the accessible features into the space from the foundation up.

Do you work on adult care homes or assisted living facilities?

Yes. We have experience designing residential-scale adult care homes and small assisted living facilities. If you are planning this type of project in our service area, we’d welcome the conversation during a consultation.

Can you design an aging in place project if I'm outside of Nashville?

Yes. Our design process is remote-first and we work with homeowners and facility operators throughout the Southeast and beyond. We’ll get boots on the ground when the project calls for it. Aging in place and accessible design translate fully to a remote design process.

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Serving Greater Nashville — Brentwood, Franklin, Gallatin, Lebanon, Murfreesboro, and surrounding Middle Tennessee — plus remote home addition design throughout the Southeast and beyond.