Skip to content
The much-anticipated Monday 21st June 2021 was an unreal, euphoric day, experienced more in the moment than my youth. On that morning, which was to completely transform our cabin life, I still didn't quite believe that the sauna would actually arrive.
My morning coffee flew out of my mouth as the black facade of the sauna suddenly appeared from the back of a lorry. I shouted to my mother, who was renovating the old sauna's roof, like a child in a playground seeing an ice cream van. Mum, Mum, Mùuuuuuum it's here!!! It's arrived!
When I climbed to the top of the cabin path to touch the sauna, I had conquered my own Everest. The first touch of the solid wood surface was an almost sacred moment. The feeling was like winning the lottery, winning a court of appeal, and Christmas Day all rolled into one. It was like a buzz, which, admittedly, could have been due to the champagne popped first thing in the morning and was quite possibly a buzz.
The new road subsided less than feared when the veteran, without hesitation, reversed the sauna down to the cottage yard with a heavy transport vehicle weighing about 30,000 kilograms. What skill!
In a moment the sauna was ready to be hoisted into place. A spin on the straps, and it was skillfully lowered onto the pillar blocks. My eyes were raining confetti. I offered the driver some sparkling wine and even invited him for a sauna. He politely declined both.
Help, how high the sauna felt compared to before. I realised I was far too short to take photos of it on the same level. One pillar block didn't seem to reach the base of the sauna, but I didn't think any more of it at that point. It would surely settle down.
The scenery changed instantly to a charmingly unfamiliar one. Fortunately, we chose to order the sauna pre-treated from the outside (a one-off). I wouldn't have had the energy to start painting the sauna straight away either, which we had also ordered completely pre-treated.
The new Saunalta [nyt. Ehta] report states that the inner walls of the sauna room are often treated at the factory precisely because the benches and the sauna heater have already been installed. The benches can also be pre-treated at the factory with Tikkurila's Supi bench wax, as was done in our case. Therefore, only the unwashed sauna stones, which were also included in the package delivery, separated us from the inaugural sauna session. There was even a high-quality bench towel ready on the benches. Perfect service.
The first steam
The pine floor, heat-treated for the sauna, smelled intoxicating. The paint fumes rising from the first heating of the sauna stove, however, were actually nauseating. Damn it. Sometimes it's worth reading the instructions beforehand. I had focused on washing the stove stones and carefully looking for the heart-shaped ones to place on top. I hadn't realised that a brand new wood-burning stove should always be pre-heated empty first to burn off protective paints.
I don't remember much from the first steams we were able to enjoy almost inside the sauna itself. It felt so unreal. I was sitting high up on the top bench. My soul landscape opened up perfectly from the large panoramic window, though from an initially strange angle. When sitting on the wide middle bench, extending almost to the back wall, the landscape felt familiar.
I considered for a moment whether a durable CLT element could have enabled an even larger window in the sauna, but perhaps sauna bathing in an aquarium-like sauna room wouldn't be very practical. Especially when there are guests at the cottage. We didn't order darkened windows, although that would have been possible.
Unlike the previous cottage sauna experience, this time I didn't squat down, fearing spiders. Of course, I understand that spiders can turn up in a new sauna too, but you'll get the point. The spruce plank benches didn't feel too hot, even with intense steam. No pine pitch stuck to my backside. I could watch the children in the lake through the landscape window. The steam was easy to breathe. I didn't want to leave.
I made a tea tree foot scrub and a face mask. There was enough space to lie down on the sauna benches. I lathered myself with an illegal amount of sauna honey that was found on the benches as a housewarming gift. This kind of self-indulgence never occurred to me in the old, cramped sauna. The comfort level has been elevated to a whole new level, and utilising all its potential will take some getting used to.
While writing this blog, I started looking for pictures of the sauna benches to go with it. I realised that I hadn't really taken any. Dirt shows up easily on black, and the benches would need to be washed before taking stylish photos. In practice, the dirt isn't a bother, as I decided right from the start that the sauna is primarily for use, not for social media photos, but to be honest, the black colour is challenging. It's really striking and stylish, but unforgiving in revealing every fallen hair and speck of dust.
Grand interior scam
I hadn't thought about the interior of the sauna cabin at all beforehand. Many people consider me a design person, but let's reveal it now; I'm really not one. I'm strongly swayed by trends.
I envy my friend Suvi Penttilä, for example, that she has always had a strong personal style, to which she has remained faithful for at least twenty years as interior design trends have changed. In that time, I myself have sailed from country romance to Scandinavian style, which most recently has been influenced by – surprise, surprise – boho. Truly personal.
I've invested a lot in timeless design in the past, but it doesn't require any particular sense of style to buy a string shelf from Vepsäläinen and stack Design Letters mugs on it, does it? The Toj coat rack juts out in the hallway of my apartment, next to the Latva floor coat stand, reminding me of a time when I could afford to invest in interior design.
It didn't require that, though, but money. And thanks to that mad mould fight, there isn't any more of that. Now the interior will require inventiveness and personality.
As a result, our sauna cabin walls are adorned with a K-Rauta rose gold mirror and an IKEA NORDRANA fabric storage unit. Functional, but doesn't exactly leave room for creative flair.
But at least I have something personal and of sentimental value. Namely, I found my grandmother's old nostalgic retro towel racks from the 60s for the sauna. Since we have a separate entrance to the sauna, the towels have to be kept in the sauna. On the other hand, they are thus always wonderfully warm to wrap yourself in.
Costs
I've had a lot of questions about costs. It's always worth budgeting on the high side for those. First of all, we started by building a road to the cabin, which after being used by tractors and lorries, had to be repaired a total of three times.
The extra gravel loads battered the foundation's budget, and the price for groundwork, including the relocation of the old sauna and all the terrace foundations, came to around €10,000. In addition, changing the purpose of the old sauna and moving it to the other side of the plot required its own building permits. The building permits for the new sauna cost approx. €500. The finishing materials for the sauna cabin cost a few hundred euros.
In addition to this, there will be the costs for the electrical work and our site manager, which we are still waiting for. And then, of course, the terrace. Timber is expensive at the moment, thanks to coronavirus, so we are seriously considering postponing the terrace until next spring.
The wonderful Rexener hot tub will arrive in late summer/early autumn, so before the terrace, but apparently, sinking it is possible just fine in this order. The hot tub choice will be its own post, as will the Kaihdinmaailma Zebra dual blinds, which we chose for the sauna cabin. Perhaps someday there will be a well and a pier… and a fibre optic cable has already been laid to the cabin. Maybe someday we could move there!
I received first-class service and a first-class modern garden sauna, which I can warmly recommend to everyone!
– Mirkka Torikka
