When I busted my ankle a little over a year ago, I made the decision that when I returned home to recover here, I would live upstairs in my two-story house. I only go downstairs — which is still kind of a struggle — when I have to go to doctor appointments. Oh, and I also left the upper story to attend Comic-Con last year. Today, I received this question from someone who asked me to omit their name…
Thank you first of all for the many years of pleasure that both your work and your blog have given me. My usual activity when I haven't kept up with the blog for a while is to binge, which I did today. Consequently, I was reading of the anniversary of your broken ankle, and I was curious about one thing since I'm physically handicapped myself. I hope you will excuse this nosy question, which is more a matter of what you might call professional curiosity.
I know how difficult stairs can be, and I was puzzled as to why you chose to modify your home in order to stay upstairs rather than downstairs. Was it because your office is upstairs? Wishing you a speedy recovery, and thanks again. Excuse my impertinence.
It's not impertinent and the answer is simple: It took much, much less remodeling and rearrangement to live upstairs. I have no bedrooms downstairs whereas I have my own, arranged-the-way-I-want-it bedroom upstairs. I have my arranged-the-way-I-want-it office upstairs. I have two bathrooms upstairs, both with showers, whereas the one bathroom downstairs has no shower.
The only necessity of life I didn't have upstairs was a kitchen so I got a microwave oven and a small refrigerator for upstairs and I moved some things like dishes, utensils and my toaster up. I also had one of the upstairs showers converted to what hotels call a "handicapped" shower. I have no idea how I could have set up a bedroom and office downstairs. It's worked pretty well. It might not work for someone else but given the way my home was already designed and how much time I was already spending upstairs as opposed to downstairs, it was the best for me.
