Wherever you are on your journey with Aging in Community, chances are that somebody has been there before. When it comes to the option of shared housing, we are lucky enough to have several people who have written some pretty great books about.
Below you’ll find six books that offer different perspectives on what shared housing is all about. Some of them tell the stories of people who have managed to make living with friends under one roof work for them. Others offer practical advice and exercises that you can put to work for yourself.
My House, Our House: Living Far Better for Far Less in a Cooperative Household by Karen M. Bush, Louis S. Machinist, and Jean McQuillin
Authored by three female Boomers with plenty of hands-on experience with shared housing, My House, Our House belongs on the bookshelves of any reader who’s serious about sharing a home with others as they age.
This book addresses the many challenges and perks of coliving as we age, particularly with other perennial women. The three trail-blazing women share their own journey of creating community with one another under a shared roof and what they learned along the way.
Told with humor, affection, and honesty, this book invites the reader to explore the challenges, practicalities, and joys of moving from “my house” to “our house.”
If you’d like to learn more about this book, I encourage you to read my blog post spotlighting My House, Our House.
How to Start a Golden Girls Home by Bonnie Moore
One of the most common questions that I get when I share my own experience of living in a real world Golden Girls home is this:
“How can I find a community just like this for myself?”
While there are some ways of finding spaces and roommates for elder women out there, the truth is that most Golden Girls homes are created DIY by the women who want them the most.
That’s why I am so grateful that a book like How to Start a Golden Girls Home is out there. While it doesn’t happen overnight, creating a setting like this for yourself isn’t rocket science. Bonnie Moore shows us all how in this book with a guide that starts with finding the right people through handling sticky situations like pets and conflicts.
Sharing Housing: A Guidebook for Finding and Keeping Good Housemates by Annamarie Pluhar
“Everyone has this universal understanding of roommate drama,” as actress Leighton Meester put it in one of my favorite quotes about shared housing.
Annamarie Pulmar knows this well, which may have been why she designed her book to serve as “a guidebook for finding and keeping good housemates.” It definitely delivers on this premise.
Within the pages the reader will find concrete, actionable advice, such as:
- How to eliminate inappropriate people quickly and safely
- How to write an ad
- How to negotiate the details of living together
- What kind of background checks and references are helpful
The book continues with chapters on actually living together what to expect and how to manage.
Your Quest for Home by Marianne Kilkenny
While it’s about more than just shared housing, I’m including my own book on this list because it offers relevant material that other books leave out.
Your Quest for Home is designed to provide readers with a roadmap for taking ownership of their own journey with Aging in Community. It serves as a guidebook for figuring out what you are looking for in a community and how to find it.
When it comes to shared housing, far too many sit around waiting for the perfect opportunity to fall in their lap, which rarely happens. If you are ready to take the initiative and start finding the people you want to live with and figure out how, when, and where you’re going to make that happen, I encourage you to pick up a copy of your own.
Shared Living: Interior Design for Rented and Shared Spaces by Emily Hutchinson
Released in late 2019, Emily Hutchinson’s new book tackle’s another important topic to shared housing: optimizing the physical spaces that we share together.
She wrote her book specifically for people who are currently living with roommates or are planning on doing it in the near future. And she covers just about every issue that I can think of when it comes to sharing residential spaces, such as merging styles and identifying what matters most when you are looking for a space.
Understanding that many people choose to live in shared housing in part for economic reasons, she also offers some practical advice on making the most of what you have, DIY interior design options from scratch, and sourcing one-of-a-kind elements by upcycling and finding great deals.
Shared Living also offers a ton of examples of what roommates have come up with from around the country, including an impressive number of color illustrations.
The Ladies of Covington Series by Joan Medlicott
Written by local author Joan Medlicott (one of my favorite people) from here in my home city of Asheville, the Ladies of Covington books occupy a special place in my heart.
Starting with The Ladies of Covington Send Their Love, the entire series is an inspiring delight. Join this household of elder women as they make their way from a sad Pennsylvania boardinghouse to create a home for themselves in the mountains of western North Carolina.
These books are a part of a literary genre referred to as Matron Lit, a subcategory of Boomer Lit, where older women are the primary protagonists. The Ladies of Covington Series is a favorite among fans for showing strong women choosing to live together to enhance their lives and relationships.
If you have found these books helpful yourself or know of others, join the conversation on Facebook.
If you are thinking about living in a shared house or have one already, I have another step for you to take.
I have released a FREE exercise just for you. It’s an excerpt from my book on finding your ideal community, Your Quest for Home.
It’s called Casting a Wider Net if 4 Easy Steps, and it’s designed to help you identify potential community collaborators in your network. In the exercise, I walk you through a four-part process of creating a mindmap that identifies people in your network who could be a good fit for your community in ever-expanding circles. Even if you are further down the road than the brainstorming stage, you still might find it interesting.
To receive it, simply sign up using the form below, and I’ll get it right to you. And if you decide to put it to work, please let me know! Seriously, I love that kind of feedback.
Sign up below to receive my free exercise for finding your people!
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