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Kirsi Alm-Siira and her partner purchased a sauna cabin in autumn 2024. The building has brought them so much joy that Kirsi absolutely wanted to share her experience and the tips she's gathered along the way with others.
Successfully planning and buying a sauna cabin requires recognising your own needs, but also insight from those who have experience.
Hopefully, Kirsi's tips will be useful to you, whether your own dream is just taking shape or you’re wondering where to start.
In this article:
Where did sauna cabin planning begin for Kirsi?
Planning the sauna cabin began in earnest, inspired by the Helsinki Spring Fair. Kirsi originally got into cabin life through her partner Antti, but now she describes herself as already a ‘true Finn and a true sauna-goer’.
My husband has had a cabin for a long time, a smallish cabin, and, well, even before I came into the picture, he'd been thinking about taking the sauna out of the main cabin itself, extending the place a bit and getting a completely separate sauna there.
Impulse buy or planned purchase?
In a way we made an impulse purchase and in a way we didn't – we'd thought about it together, what would be a smart solution and how we'd do it – but then when we came here to the fair, we didn't have time to visit very many stands before we found the one that was the best fit and the right one for us.
A suitable cabin and good service from the Ehta stand
There were lots of people at Ehta's stand and we had to wait a little for our turn. – We pretty much knew what we were after, and when we saw our favourite in real life, it was a pretty clear-cut decision.
– and we got really good service. Hanna was there to serve us and answer the questions that were on our minds. And honestly, I'd never bought any kind of sauna or sauna cabin before, so I had quite a lot of questions.
Tips for planning a sauna cabin
- Talk it over with everyone involved: what the sauna cabin means to you and how the new building should serve you.
It went surprisingly well in agreement, considering that at home we sometimes tussle over the interior decor and so on… but we pretty much wanted the same kinds of things, as we knew broadly that we wanted the sauna out of our main cabin so we'd get more space there. - Take into account any other surrounding buildings and the connection to them
We knew roughly what colour tones the sauna could have, what it might look like from the outside. The main cabin is black, so we also wanted the sauna cabin to be the same colour, so that it goes really well, in my opinion, with the log cabin built in the eighties. Even though they're from completely different eras, they have the same tones and somehow the same spirit anyway. Even though this one is modern, this new sauna cabin we have now.
In the end, my husband came up with the idea of joining the sauna cabin's deck and the main cabin's deck. It added usability in the sense that there's now a lot more deck and they go well together. And then it somehow tied the two cabins on the same plot together even better. - Find a provider who can build the building of your dreams.
In terms of value for money, the best solution is usually a prefabricated building with details customised to your own needs. Kirsi and Antti also chose a customisable prefabricated cabin:
Well, basically it [Ehta: Sauna Cabin 20] was pretty perfect, but we made changes in that we both wanted to move the fireplace. It was in the corner in front of the window, which I think is the case in quite a lot of designs. I think it looks really nice, but we somehow thought we maybe wanted more space for the bed, so we moved it.
In the sauna we made the window a bit bigger, and when the options were to take it right down to the floor or, or a bit smaller, we wanted it to be sort of, sort of in the middle. – On the back wall we wanted one of these small ventilation windows. But those changes really were quite easy to make, and we got ideas for that too [from Ehta's designer]. - Utilise professionals already in the design phase (e.g., Ehta's design service is free)
I remember thinking it would be really nice to have a bigger window on the back wall, but then when I listened to the professionals, it wasn't all that sensible. They were able to take into account things that I maybe didn't.
We thought – we thought we'd measured it, and my husband too, who understands these things better than I do, was completely convinced – that there was no way the sauna cabin could be brought there in one piece. So we were going to buy it so that it would be assembled on site. But fortunately we got professional help with that too.
We sent him videos from the cabin, so the professional could see that the smaller vehicle would fit through there just fine and the building could be lifted into place, so that was a realisation that was genuinely game-changing! So the sauna was ready for bathing much sooner than if it had come as a self-assembly kit. - Give it a little time: do some googling, go and look at your friends' saunas and why not visit the spring fair!
Before you go looking for good ideas, I think it's worth thinking about what the sauna, and a possible lounge and changing room, will be used for and what you want. Once you know that, it's maybe worth having a look online and, if you have friends or acquaintances, – at what theirs look like.
And for us at least it was really good that we were here [at the spring fair] and went inside the saunas and got that sort of final certainty that we ourselves knew what we wanted.
What was incredibly good for me was that because it [the sauna cabin] was furnished like this, I got the idea straight away that there's a good sofa bed in there. And even though we didn't get all the same things one-to-one, you could still somehow see that it works like this. And little details like this were given attention here too. We also looked at, okay, that kind of sauna heater and benches in that colour and so on…
Kirsi's choices for finishing the dream sauna cabin
Picture window
Our window doesn't go all the way down to the floor, but it's quite big. Now we can see straight out through a single [picture] window, so the view has improved too.
Wide bench
When you're thinking about a new sauna – we invested in the width of the benches, especially the upper bench. It adds a surprising amount of comfort.
Natural works
Inside it looks like sort of untreated wood. Of course it isn't completely untreated, but very natural-looking. – we think the sauna lounge is so nice, and it smells of lovely, fairly fresh wood, so it's nice to spend time there otherwise too, –
A sauna cabin or a sauna with a changing room? Kirsi's tips for making a choice.
Kirsi recommends deciding on the size of the building by listening to your own needs. But she doesn't advise cutting corners too much:
When you're thinking about getting your own sauna or sauna cabin, the most important thing is knowing what the need is. Sometimes it might be just a sauna and a changing room, and that really is quite enough. It depends a lot on what the cabin is for: Does anyone other than your own family go there? How old are the children? Do the children want their own space? If so, I'd definitely recommend thinking about a lounge there, so, well, I think a lot depends on that.
I'd go for a bit more rather than a bit less. I don't think it makes all that much difference to the final cost – we too at some point tossed around the idea of not having the lounge at all – just a changing room – and now it kind of feels like that would have been a silly place to save, because the lounge is really useful, even though it isn't big.
A sauna cabin can also be a guest cabin and a workspace
With this sauna cabin, the cabin is now largely becoming a place where it's genuinely nice to be, with a bit more space. Even though the sauna cabin is relatively small, it gives sleeping space for just two or three more people. So it means you can invite people over a lot more if you want.
Or you can make room for guests in the main cabin yourself and go and sleep in the sauna cabin. But it does get used a lot. Last winter when we were at the cabin, we also used it as a workspace: when one of us was working, they went to the sauna lounge to do it.
Kirsi recommends a separate changing room in a sauna cabin
Kirsi and Antti's sauna cabin also has a small changing room between the sauna and the lounge, with direct access outside for cooling off. This way the steam from the sauna doesn't spread into the lounge, and there's a dedicated place for clothes and sauna gear:
The way it works for us is that we come out of the sauna, open the glass door, come into the changing room, then open the door to the deck, and then there's a separate way over to the lounge side.
On the right is the sauna, then the changing room, and on the left is the sauna lounge. There's not much in there [in the changing room]: there's a chest of drawers for towels and sauna things, a mirror and a lamp, a bench and coat hooks. And I don't think it even needs anything else. But the fact that you've got somewhere to put your clothes down, or you can keep essential sauna things or toiletries or whatever there, makes the changing room more important than its size, you know.
Benefits of turnkey delivery: convenient, but also a memorable experience
A prefabricated building installed straight from the lorry onto the foundations is a truly magical experience. When the building is finished at the factory, right down to the benches and heater, you can bathe in the sauna that very evening:
I think this is quite an amazing thing. Of course the base had been prepared a little earlier, but when the cabin arrived in the morning, maybe around nine, we were in the sauna before nine in the evening.
I'm still somehow amazed at how well we in Finland know how to plan and make these things. – This really went just as we were promised…
Kirsi Alm-Siira's experience of buying an Ehta sauna cabin was excellent.
