IN-LAW APARTMENTS
By ROBIN STANSBURY
As families downsize, spaces become increasingly popular
Designing the area isn’t always easy, especially when the space is being added onto an existing home.
Julie Woodland knew that one day she wanted her mother to move in with her family, but not, she says, by setting up a spare bedroom or, worse, “shoving her into the basement.”
So when the family drew up plans a few years ago to build a home in Woodstock, Conn., they included a spacious in-law apartment.
The Woodlands occupy the main house, a four-bedroom Colonial style. A mudroom attaches the house to the in-law apartment, which is built on the main level over a sunken three-car garage.
“There’s a lot of people in our situation, with aging parents who are maybe still working only to pay the taxes on their house each year,” Woodland said. “My mom is a very youthful 70, and we told her we really want to enjoy you. Now she’s volunteering, traveling, seeing friends. This has given her tremendous flexibility.”
Woodland said part of the success of merging her mom, Sandy Peralta, into her family is that both have separate living spaces. The in-law apartment has a full kitchen, family room, bathroom with laundry space, an office and even a private patio. And the kids must call before heading to grandma’s.
“When she has company, she doesn’t hear us and we don’t hear her,” Woodland said. “We can be together and we can be separate when we need to.”
But designing space for an in-law apartment isn’t always easy, especially when the space is being added onto an existing home or, even tougher, into a basement. Local zoning regulations can make adding in-law space difficult, out of fear that homeowners are trying to create an apartment as a rental unit or turn a single-family home into a two-family home.
That is what prompted the town of Newington, Conn., last year to delete in-law apartments, known there as accessory units, from its zoning regulations. But the town is now reviewing the issue after advocacy groups for the aging and disabled lobbied the planning panel about the need for in-law units.
Ed Meehan, Newington’s town planner, said proposed regulations under review stress keeping a house looking like a single-family home from the outside even with the addition of in-law space and require that both spaces share the same heat and electricity.
Local architects and builders say merging in-law space into a home plan can be done, if sometimes requiring creative thinking.
Leigh Overland, a Danbury, Conn., architect, predicted that zoning officials everywhere will be forced to review the issue in coming years as the baby-boom generation grows older.
“In-law apartments have become very popular,” Overland said. “It is becoming and will become a more sought-after renovation and addition, especially when the economy pushes people toward downsizing and, more importantly, as more families realize the importance of living together.”
One of Overland’s recent designs created a separate in-law apartment that, from the outside, looks like a detached garage. But it is attached to the main home from the outside by a deck, and hidden underneath the deck – built partially underground – is a hallway that allows passage from the main home to the in-law space without going outside.
“The two buildings look separated, but they aren’t,” said Jim Blansfield, owner of Blansfield Builders Inc., which constructed the home. “It really became a functional way to communicate the two spaces, but in a creative way to make the connection invisible to the eye.”
Mark Stidsen, owner of Landsen Construction in Glastonbury, Conn., said he first built an in-law apartment for a client 10 years ago and added one to his own home in 2004.
“We are receiving more requests for this design as parents age and they want to stay close to their family but don’t necessarily want their own home,” Stidsen said.
For the Woodland family, the shared living experience has been so successful that they plan to duplicate their living spaces when they move to Oklahoma this year because of a job transfer.
“I would say that the personalities of the people involved, their commitment to providing each other maximum respect and privacy, and how well thought-out the actual living spaces are arranged are the greatest keys to success,” Woodland said.
“But for older folks as well as younger people just getting started, this type of arrangement is extremely rewarding.”