Could you live in just 425 square feet? There's a micro house for sale in Minneapolis with a mansion-envy location, just two blocks from Cedar Lake.
Built in 1922, decades before the tiny house trend, this home is no fixer-upper. It's already been fixed, just last year, including a brand-new kitchen and bathroom, plus new plumbing and electrical sytems and new windows.
The house, which faces a wetland, is in a somewhat secluded neighborhood of much larger and newer homes. Real estate agent Sherri Beier, Coldwell Banker, speculates that it was originally built as someone's rustic getaway spot. The bathroom appears to have been added later, and the house has a chimney but no fireplace, leading her to guess there was once a wood-burning stove. "A little cottage that morphed into this baby house," she said. "A lot of people are curious about it."
The house had been a rental property and was in rough shape when owner John Nyagaka bought it in 2017, intending to build a new house on the lot. "It was pretty bad — kind of an eyesore," he said. "It was a teardown, let's be honest."
Nyagaka cleaned up the house and moved in while he worked with an architect on plans for a new house. He fell in love with the setting with its mature trees and wildlife, including deer, ducks and birds. "You hear frogs," he said. "You're in the city but you don't feel like you are. You forget you're in Minneapolis."
Eventually the little house began to grow on him, and he decided to remodel it rather than tear it down.
"It's small, but I'm kind of a minimalist anyway," he said.
Last year Nyagaka gutted and updated the entire house. "It didn't have a true closet," he said, so he tore out one wall to add a small walk-in closet. The remodeled house is just two rooms — a kitchen and living room/bedroom, plus a bathroom — but they're as fresh and modern as a new condo, with engineered wood floors, quartz countertops, white cabinets, subway tile, new appliances and a ¾ bath with a new floor of slate-hued penny tile. There's even a window seat.
