Tilstra house for sale near Northfield

Darwin Tilstra took a walk through our house over the holidays. Darwin and his son Micha are fellow racquetball players. He’s also a coffeehouse laptop jockey like me, working as a as Genetic Improvement Manager for Norsvin USA.

He’s very interested in our house but he’s got one of his own on the market. So I thought I’d help him sell it!

Here’s a description on the Edina Realty listing page for the house:

Absolutely gorgeous country style home, redone from studs to redesigning & everything new. Very elegant with custom architecturally designed interview, from flooring to appliances to the solid oak throughout home. You have to see it to truly appreciate it.

11678 Kane Avenue Northfield, MN 55057
MLS#: 3095534
Price: $549,000
Contact: Brian Trebelhorn

Stair treads

Robbie bought stair treads for the basement stairs a few months ago and she waited til last weekend to put them on (left photo – click to enlarge). We liked them so much we decided to put them on the main stairway.

Second floor hallway, stairway, transoms, wood floors

The photos show the stairway between the first and second floors, the hallway (note the rounded wall) to the two large bedrooms, and the hallway from the three small bedrooms.

Three of the doorways upstairs have transoms. And all five bedrooms have wood floors.

New “About the House” page

I’ve added a new page to this blogsite called About The House where I’m working on a narrative summary — history, features, neighborhood, main selling points, etc. with links to pertinent blog posts.

I was thinking I should probably go read real estate listings and take time to learn how to pitch a house. But nah. I’ll go with my own words for now.

Construction photos of where we moving

On Saturday, my wife Robbie and I got a tour of the condo we’re buying at Northfield Crossing on the northwest edge of downtown Northfield — about 8 blocks away. Click photos to enlarge and see more photos of our tour in this album.

Bronze door fixtures

Nearly every door in our house has bronze door knobs and backing plates, including closets and doors to the outside. Click photos to enlarge.

New siding

We spent $20,000+ about five years ago to completely reside the house with some classy-looking vinyl siding. The house is a Victorian but not a classic Victorian with the ornate touches usually associated with that style, so we didn’t believe that keeping the hard-to-maintain wood siding was important. We think we chose wisely. The company who did the work did a fantastic job. Click the photos for closeups.

Curbside recycling vs. online recycling

We've not only been making good use of our curb to get rid of stuff that otherwise might end up in the landfill.

Robbie's been also using a website called Freecycle for items that either don't get taken from the curb or for ones that can't be put out in the rain.

"The Freecycle Network is made up of many individual groups across the globe. It's a grassroots and entirely nonprofit movement of people who are giving (& getting) stuff for free in their own towns."

Yahoo Groups (online discussion lists) are used for communications. There is a Northfield Freecycle group and another one for Rice-Steele County.

Getting ready

It's going to happen soon… by fall, 2006. Our house at:

1016 Linden Street South
Northfield, Minnesota, 55057 USA

will be on the market. We're moving to Northfield Crossing in April, 2007.

We plan to sell it ourselves and this blog will help us do what needs to be done. See this Google Maps link for the location.