Living in a 105 Year Old Farmhouse Updated for the Modern Era
© Mark McWiggins 2025
My wife and I moved from Renton WA to this house near Centralia WA in 2024. Our home in Renton was a modern 2-story on a quiet street in town near the hospital. We had a modern refrigerator with ice maker, HVAC based on natural gas, and a total of 2600 square feet.
Our current house is a total of $1200 square feet with the following features: stairs (but not to current code)… 2 bathrooms, both downstairs. One of the rooms in our house, just off the kitchen, could make a lovely sitting / TV room, but currently my wife is using it as an “internal refrigerator” … with a few upgrades, like this sitting room and some extra quartz heaters and a new refrigerator, and a bit of extra plumbing, like plumbed in bidets, could bring it up to modern standards.
It is otherwise a lovely spot for a house … it’s on a mostly-quiet street with very little traffic … a few near neighbors within several blocks and our church about 2 miles away. It’s really a wonderful spot for a little home like this.
Authors’ note: I am a computer security consultant and manager and an author … see most of the rest of my writing on Medium.com.
