A Home for What Comes Next: Charmaine Garman’s Fresh Start

For nearly 50 years, Charmaine Garman lived in the home she and her husband, Ivan, built together. It was a home filled with the accumulated layers of a life—family photographs, favorite furniture, treasured antiques, and memories of raising a family. It also represented another significant part of their life together: building the company they founded in 1972.

Leaving a home like that could easily have been a decision postponed indefinitely.

Charmaine decided to do the opposite.

“I’m not a procrastinator,” she says. “I just didn’t want it to be a problem for my family. So I thought, I want to do it while I can, and I can still enjoy building a home.”

In fact, Charmaine had wanted to build again for years, even before Ivan passed away 11 years ago. Rather than waiting until circumstances dictated her next move, she decided to make it herself.

The result is a home designed for what Charmaine loves today—natural light, entertaining, time outdoors—and thoughtfully prepared for what she might need someday.

But it also became something she may not have anticipated at the beginning: an opportunity to start fresh.

Planning Ahead, Without Giving Up Home

Charmaine found her starting point when she walked through Garman Builders’ Grayson model at Wynfield at Annville, a 55+ community in Lebanon County.

“It was a good feel when I walked in,” she says. “And the light.”

Light mattered. Charmaine loves being outside, watching birds and spending time on a porch. She wanted a home that maintained that connection to the outdoors through abundant windows and generous outdoor living spaces.

The Grayson offered much of what she wanted—the livable floor plan, natural light, and a large kitchen island—but Charmaine knew she wanted a ranch rather than a two-story home. The existing plan became inspiration for a home tailored specifically to her.

She added a spacious front porch, where a neighbor sometimes joins her to sit, and a screened outdoor living space in the back. Inside, the kitchen revolves around a large island and farmhouse sink.

The island was especially important because Charmaine still loves to entertain.

“I’ve been entertaining a lot since I’m here,” she says.

Friends call wanting to see the new house, and Charmaine often turns the visit into lunch. Children and grandchildren come and go, and she continues her tradition of hosting her grandchildren for a Christmas meal. Recently, three or four couples joined her for dinner. When the meal was over, everyone left the dishes where they were and headed outside to sit together.

“It was really fun,” she says.

The home works for the life Charmaine is living now. Yet some of its most thoughtful features were designed for a life that may still be many years away.

Charmaine intentionally created the lower level as a separate living space should she someday need someone to live with her and provide assistance. It includes a kitchen, bathroom, living area, porch, private entrance, and even a detached garage.

“They would have everything down there that I have up here, actually,” she says.

Even the staircase received careful consideration.

Charmaine didn't want to open a door and descend into a dark basement that felt disconnected from the rest of the house. She chose an open staircase instead, making the lower level feel like a natural extension of the home.

It feels, she says, “much more friendly.”

At the same time, doors can provide privacy between the two living areas. If someone eventually shares the house with her, Charmaine wants that arrangement to preserve independence for both of them.

“I want to make sure it’s somebody that I’ll be comfortable with and that they will be comfortable in my home.”

It is planning for aging that isn't centered on limitation. Instead, Charmaine designed for choice—the ability to remain in the home she loves, surrounded by the things and people that matter most.

Permission to Start Fresh

Perhaps the more unexpected part of Charmaine's move wasn't what she built, but what she decided not to bring with her.

After nearly five decades in one home, there was no shortage of possessions. Photographs were among the hardest things to sort through.

“I have so many photos,” she says. “I love photos.”

She kept plenty, displaying some and storing others. But even photographs from meaningful experiences, including mission trips to Nicaragua and Guatemala, required choices.

“You can only have so many.”

When it came to the main living spaces of the new home, Charmaine went considerably further.

“I pretty well started over,” she says.

She purchased new furnishings and allowed herself to embrace a more contemporary aesthetic rather than trying to recreate the home she had just left. Some meaningful pieces came with her. Much of the furniture from her former home now fills the finished lower level. Other belongings were donated or given away, while several cherished antiques remain to be passed along.

For someone who describes herself as “very traditional,” the shift surprised even Charmaine.

She found herself drawn to a lighter, slightly coastal style that reminded her of Florida. The Grayson model provided inspiration for elements including the kitchen, paint color and wallpaper, but she adjusted other details to suit her own taste. When something felt too contemporary, she changed it.

She knew what she liked—and increasingly understood that was reason enough to choose it.

“It took me a long time to know I can do what I want,” Charmaine says.

It's a simple observation, but one that seems to capture something larger about this house.

After a lifetime of building and remodeling homes with Ivan, raising a family and creating spaces meant to be shared, Charmaine had the opportunity to consider what she wanted this particular home to be.

She didn't need to abandon everything familiar to do it. She simply didn't need to bring everything forward, either.

Her approach offers a different way to think about downsizing. Rather than beginning with the question, What can I fit into my new home? Charmaine began with something closer to, How do I want to live here?

The answer made room for a new design style, new furnishings and a home that feels distinctly hers.

Making the Move

None of that meant leaving her old home was easy.

For about two weeks after the new house was ready, Charmaine continued carrying belongings over without quite making the final move. When people asked whether she had officially moved, her answer remained, “Not yet.”

The hesitation wasn't practical.

It was emotional.

“I knew once I make that move, I’m here,” she says. “And I thought, what if I don’t like it?”

She didn't really believe that would happen. Still, after nearly 50 years in one place, there was a difference between building a new house and waking up one morning knowing it was now home.

Eventually, she made the move.

And the woman who had so carefully planned for the transition discovered something about herself in the process.

Her son Shawn recently told her, “Mom, you really did amaze me how well you adapted to all this.”

Charmaine's response was equally telling.

“Well, I think I kind of amazed myself.”

Her new home doesn't erase the one that came before it. Photographs remain on display. Favorite pieces found new places. Family still gathers around the table. Friends sit with her on the porch. And the importance of creating a home that feels warm and welcoming—a quality Charmaine says mattered to both her and Ivan—hasn't changed.

What has changed is the freedom to imagine what comes next.

Charmaine's home looks ahead without turning its back on the past. It provides for a future she cannot entirely predict while giving her a home she thoroughly enjoys today.

And perhaps that is the most compelling part of her story.

She didn't wait for life to tell her it was time to move. She made the decision herself, kept what mattered, let go of what didn't and discovered there was still room to try something new.

After nearly 50 years in one home, Charmaine Garman didn't simply downsize.

She gave herself permission to begin again.