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24
Apr

What’s the Deal with Granny Flats?

Hirshfield's > Design Inspiration > What’s the Deal with Granny Flats?
Granny Flats

Granny Flats: Grandma’s Home That’s Not Away From Home

There are so many dizzying trends highlighted daily in the media. Some are crazy (beaded lips, vampire facials and fish pedicures to mention a few), but when I saw an article on “granny flats,” I was intrigued. Essentially, you can live near your momma without actually living with her. That sounds ideal to me!

Granny Flat Connected To Home – Burlington Architects & Building Designers CULTivation D.S | Photography by Carolyn Bates
Basically, builders are starting to recognize the obstacles growing old presents: high cost of living, slow rebound coming out of the recession, and the widening health care costs for aging parents (to name a few). They have coined the phrase “NextGen” living where adding separate (yet attached) living quarters to house an aging parent. They have separate exterior entrances and often their very own single-car garage. The interior has one or two doors to connect to the main home, and the space ranges from 600 square feet to a bit larger, and it includes a single bedroom and a kitchenette along with a main living space.

Bedroom for Granny Flat – Angela Adams
Another granny flat option is putting up a small dwelling on your property that is not attached to your home. You can build it out according to the needs of the family member(s) who will be living there. Checking with your city council to see if the “granny flat” conversation has come up in your community would be your first step. Rehabbing a garage or carriage house is another option.

I think it sounds lovely. Imagine being able to visit your mom in her own home without having to get in your car, or on a train, or in an airplane; yet she’s living independently, but very near you! The best part of the arrangement is that I can have mom’s cooking in her own living room where, while I’m eating chicken pot pie, I can enjoy pictures of my childhood plastered on walls painted or wallpapered with my mom’s distinct taste (oh, how she loves blue….).

Rehabbed garage
Rehabbed garage

I imagine taking her to Hirshfield’s to meet with a color consultant on paint ideas – my anxiety running at a very low level knowing that she can plaster shades of her beloved blue all over her very own granny flat. After all, it’s my mom’s place (and she does make that blue feel like home), yet I can leave (to go across the hall) to my own neutral color palette any time I please.

Rustic Bedroom by West Midlands Interior Designers & Decorators Cream & Black Interior Design

For help decorating a granny flat or any other space, visit the color experts at our local Hirshfield’s locations in Minnesota, Wisconsin, South Dakota, and North Dakota. We love to discuss design, color, and granny flats.

Since Frank and Elizabeth Hirshfield opened their first store in 1894, it has been our mission to do the best job possible meeting customer needs and solving customer problems. Hirshfield’s. People and products you can trust.

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