The moment everything changed
Three years ago I reached for a serving bowl from a step stool. My shoulder, the one I'd ignored for sixteen years, gave out. I caught the counter, heart pounding, and the systems engineer in me woke up screaming: I design fail-safes for satellites — redundancy and graceful degradation in systems where failure isn't an option. Why did I build zero for my own home?
So I stopped trusting “you're just getting older” and started auditing. My own home first, then 200 others — people aged 51 to 93, more than forty of them in rentals, where the rules are different. I moved the mug. I added a second rail. I bought a $40 mat that three years of daily tracking proved would end my mystery hip pain.
“Aging is mandatory. Losing your home, your confidence, your routine: those are optional. You just have to plan before the crisis plans for you.”
The numbers, plainly stated
Everything on this site is built on facts I can state without padding:
- 25 years designing systems for aerospace and defense — load, risk, redundancy, graceful degradation.
- 3 years studying aging in place, and 200+ home assessments with people aged 51 to 93.
- CAPS — Certified Aging-in-Place Specialist, credentialed through the National Association of Home Builders.
- My own body as the lab: at 64, with bilateral knee osteoarthritis, L4/L5 disc degeneration, and rotator cuff tendinopathy — and, since I built this system, zero falls and zero surgeries.
- 70% less everyday pain, self-reported across three years of daily tracking and checked weekly with my physiotherapist — achieved through environmental change, not because my body stopped aging.
*Self-reported, from William's own home, validated week to week with his physiotherapist. Individual results vary. Not medical advice — your care team comes first.
What I bring to your home
- Systems thinking, not a to-do list. I approach your home the way I approached systems where failure isn't an option: load, risk, weak points, redundancy, then a phased plan.
- CAPS-trained expertise. Certified Aging-in-Place Specialist through the National Association of Home Builders, applied to every blueprint in the guide.
- 200+ real audits. Paid, pro bono, friends, strangers — more than 40 in rentals, where the rules are different.
- A tested product directory. I buy things, test them, return them, and only recommend what survived — and I don't take a cent of affiliate money for it.
- Consultation with the professionals. The system was shaped with occupational therapists, physical therapists, contractors, elder-law attorneys, and financial planners — and it tells you exactly when to call one.
What I'm not
A doctor. A contractor. A salesperson for grab bars. I don't sell equipment, I don't take affiliate money from the products I test, and I won't tell you to buy anything before we understand the problem. The whole point is fewer purchases, not more.
— William