It's been a few months of deep DEEP soul searching for the Barnak family.  We landed here in northeast PA almost 5 years ago now and when we moved here it was with the intention of staying put.  Truly.  My husband's family is here, we're constantly surrounded by the familiar and we were at the end of the constant relocating cycle of life.  

Until now.

A little back history on our lives as a married couple.  We met at Penn State and as timing would have it, we graduated the same semester.  Prior to graduation, my lovely then boyfriend/now husband popped the question and we were engaged.  Graduation arrived and passed and right out of college in 1998 we moved in together for the first time in a little town called Orange, TX.  Sean (hubs) works for a large, well known manufacturing company that we won't name - he's a mechanical engineer.  We flew straight from college in Pennsylvania to an apartment in Texas, eventually a house and stayed there for 3.5 years.  I worked with prison inmates (social worker) and he had his first post college engineering job.  Life was grand.  That was relocation #1 with the company.

This is our little Texas house - 1100 square feet of First Time Home Ownership right here! Side note: isn't it funny that 17 years later I would love to go back to this house and make it so much better? I can think of a thousand more things I would do to it now!

In 2001 we left the heat of cajun country and Texas and moved to Wilmington, Delaware.  Sean was excited about his new opportunity there with the same company and I found a great job as a social worker for Foster Children.  His job was stressful, mine was rewarding, but stressful.  It was in this particular location that we became pregnant with baby #1.  She was born in October of 2002.  I quit my job in January of 2003 to stay home with her. This was relocation #2 with the company.

Relocation #2 house: A split level that needed minimal renovation.  We were working too many hours and had a new baby - not much renovation happened here. I remember painting and replacing the kitchen floor - that's it!

When our 1st daughter was just 6 months old in 2003, we made that difficult decision to move away from our family, and we accepted Relocation #3 to Nashville, Tennessee.  This was - by far - our favorite location to date.  We spent a glorious 2 years in Nashville - well, a town called Mount Juliet right outside of Nashville - and loved every minute of it.  Sean loved his job, and because the cost of living was so much less than Delaware, I stayed home with our daughter. Relocation #3 is still our all time favorite out of all of our locations.

It was the only time we've ever owned a brand new home.  We bought a spec home from a Tennessee Builder and I have to say that I loved it.  It was fun to decorate with a blank slate and not have  to tackle any major projects.  This one was just paint and decor.

When baby #1 was just about 2.5, still in Nashville, we found out we were pregnant with baby #2. Coincidentally I was peeing on a stick as the movers were rolling boxes out of our house and onto a truck headed back north.  I literally broke the news to my husband amongst 3 large mover-men and a giant roll of bubble wrap that we were having another baby.  We were moving BACK to Delaware for Relocation #4.  We loaded up the car with 1 toddler, 1 golden retriever and 1 very very morning sickness afflicted wife. 27 hours in a car later we were in Delaware.

Our 2nd Delaware house - a beautiful contemporary that we just LOVED. It had the brady bunch staircase inside and a glorious vaulted ceiling with open concept floor plan. It was also tucked back this long wooded lane and we just adored the privacy factor:

Relocation #4 in Delaware brought us the birth of daughter #2, and it was a turning point for my budding career.  I decided to take a passion and hobby of mine (photography) and begin a business.  We spent 5 years in Delaware for this relocation and in that time I had a booming business, opened 2 studios and was voted Best of Delaware in Children's Photography. My brother and my mother had relocated to Delaware as well, so I had a little bit of family and support near by.  Life was SO GOOD.

Until it wasn't.

I was stressed from becoming too busy too fast.  Sean's career was taking off. Kids were in school and we were both juggling 50+ hour  a week jobs, school activities, after school activities and daycare for the little one.  It was a rat race of massive proportions and became a bit unbearable. If you've ever run your own company, you know exactly what I mean when I say the nights were long and the days were insanity.

These are the moments when I think the Universe or God or whatever you choose to call it personally stepped in and redirected our path in a way that would benefit both of us.  On a random Tuesday we wound up with a job offer for my husband in Towanda, Pa.    It meant that I would have to close my business entirely, and on that Tuesday a piece of sanity clicked and I was sincerely 100% ok with that. I had had enough.  And I missed my kids.

Towanda itself isn't much to blink at aside from it's gorgeous victorian real estate, but it's 90 minutes from my husband's family.  He has a HUGE family and the support system was too much to turn down, so we ended up transferring for Relocation #5 to Northeast Pennsylvania.  Not in Towanda directly, but close enough that my husband can commute and we are still near to some family, even though leaving mine back in Delaware was difficult. We've been here nearly 5 years now and have loved it.  I started a business centered around my 2nd love of interior decorating, and with the lessons I learned from my studio, it's been a much different experience.

Relocation #5 and our current house:

Life is good, right?  We have a great home, I have a great business, Sean loves his job, the girls love their school, we live near family.... But, still the Universe knows best.  We find ourselves in a place where if we turn our ears to the sky and really listen, we can tell that there's something we're supposed to be doing - and it's not here.

A month ago the topic of moving to Charleston came up like a feather. It floated in and perched on our minds until we were forced to address the tickle.  We prayed and discussed and prayed and analyzed... months of talking to the children and trying to make that decision to leave or stay.   We prayed a LOT.  Sean took his engineering background to heart and he spreadsheeted the you-know-what out of this thing.... In the end, we are both big believers that opportunities don't just show up at random without a good reason.  We've learned over the years to trust the madness of the universe and if it happens, it was absolutely meant to be and you should embrace it. There is purpose in the madness.

So, last week when my husband's boss mentioned a job opening in Charleston, South Carolina with the same company, we jumped on it. Sean applied for the job and now life is in absolute, torturous limbo.  Unfortunately, working for a large company means this part is torture.  We could know something in days, weeks or even months.  One never knows when the mood strikes them to actually proceed with the resume/interview/offer.  It's awfully frustrating!

It's been a while since I've been in this place.  You know the one where you envision what the new location looks like, what are the people like, what are the houses like, and then you do what any sane woman would do and you STALK TO THE DEATH websites like Trulia and Zillow to find the perfect house - knowing full well that in the months it will take for all of this job stuff to go down, that house won't be there.  But the torture continues and it's an endless cycle.

That's our history. And so today - because it's a holiday and no one updates real estate websites on holidays- I've decided to make a comprehensive list of all of the things I wish to have in the new house. Amenities I wish this home had and some I could live without.

Location:  I'm of the mindset that if you're moving to Charleston, you're moving to Charleston. So I want to live near Charleston with a Charleston address. Not Mount Pleasant, not Summerville, not Goose Creek - CHARLESTON.  So, my favorite area right now is west of the city in an area called West Ashley.   It's affordably priced and close to the city AND the beach. Win!

Size:   Honestly, after living in all of these houses, my favorite house was also the smallest.  Our Tennessee house was just about 1800 square feet of absolute, easy to clean BLISS.  I want nothing bigger than that.  In our minds, smaller is better, though I would love a house that tricks the eye into thinking it's bigger with vaulted ceilings and an open floor plan.  Side note: I know that most of the American world is obsessed with grand, enormous houses that cost a fortune to heat and landscape and take days to keep clean (not to mention the money to renovate and furnish!), and that's totally ok - I get it. No judgement - I swear. But it's just not us.  We live much more simply than that.

Bedrooms:  3.   We could go for 4, but in reality we only need 3 and the 4th would just be a room that I have to dust before company arrives.  We currently have 3 bedrooms and constant weekend company and it works just fine.  Though this morning my daughters tried for hours to talk me into a 4th bedroom so that I could "turn it into a joint walk in dressing room for us!"  Uh..... sorry girls.

Bathrooms: 2.5  No more. No less.  I have 2 daughters who will be using that 2nd bathroom soon as teenagers and I want to make sure it is (or can be renovated to be) a bathroom that can adapt to two teen age girls.  Why not go for a house with a 3rd full bath?  Because the cost of that house increases more than it would cost me to add a 2nd sink into an existing single bath. :)  I'm a budget conscious girl! Also, I would abhor having to clean a 3rd full bathroom.

Type of home:  South Carolina is FULL of beautiful "charleston style" houses. If I was a millionaire, I would buy one of those homes on the peninsula and never look back.  But since I'm not, and I'm very budget conscious, I want a home that is reminiscent of the low country style. I love front porches, but I also love the raised beach style homes. I am very open on this.  As long as the interior works for me, the outside can look any way it wants.

Floorplan:  I definitely want an open concept floor plan.  I loved our 2nd delaware house for this reason and would love to get there again.  Our current house is amazing, but it's broken into a bunch of little rooms that mostly go unused.  I feel like an open concept space would be space that we use and really live in.  I'm noticing too that the southern homes like to put the master on the first floor. I'm totally on board with that.  I'm also totally on board with a bonus room (or FROG - whatever you call it where you are) over the garage.  I think it would be nice to have a place for the kids to go with their friends.

CURRENT LIST OF MUST HAVE AMENITIES:

Kitchen

Either totally updated and gorgeous or totally junky so I can gut it.  If it's in the middle, I will feel badly about ripping it out, and it will be harder to talk Sean into a kitchen renovation if it's "kind of nice" but "kind of not".

Fireplace

 A must - I miss not having one here. I realize SC is warm, but there are cold-ish, cozier months and I would love to snuggle by a fire to give me that sense of being back in the north.

Screened Porch 

Everyone says I will use it religiously when I live in the south and I tend to agree from my experience in TX and TN.  The heat doesn't bother me (dude... Texas summers are ridiculous!) but I'm not a fan of being mosquito dinner.

Vaulted Ceilings
Yes, please. I long to add beams and other fun structural things of interest.

Master Bath with TUB

I don't care if it's a jacuzzi or a junker, but I just want there to be a place for it so I can remove it and move in the pedestal tub of my dreams, thank you.

Garage

We don't have one now and my husband really really really needs a place to go and spend some man time.  Oil changes, power tools, beers with the neighborhood guys on trash day....

Neighborhood 

I want my kids to be able to ride their bikes on our street, with other kids, safely.  I would love to find a neighborhood with an active community - block parties, halloween parades, etc. I'm ready to be part of a real community. Right now we live in a town and while people are nice, there isn't a sense of true community like you get in those southern neighborhoods.

That's it.  Not a bad list, and based on my current stalking of zillow and trulia, it's an attainable list! I have 2 on my radar right now and so I'm just praying to that Universe to reject all offers until I can get there to see them.  Whenever that might be, you know, with the current limbo situation of our lives!!!  Till then I am biting my tongue to make sure it's not the only thing I talk about with Sean, and then I secretly text the houses I love back and forth with my sister in law.

You gotta do what you gotta do to get through!

What's on your MUST HAVE list?