About us

Beauty of the unexpected: Get to know Kotona!

Kotona (Finnish for “at home”) is a Nordic home & lifestyle media and your guide to Nordic living: homes that inspire, ideas that amaze, and stories that celebrate life as it is—beautifully simple, delightfully quirky, and unapologetically real.

Discover sustainable solutions, stunning visuals, and the kind of creativity that makes you say, “Why didn’t I think of that?” Kotona is here to remind you that happiness is handmade, beauty thrives in the unexpected, and life doesn’t need to be perfect to be wonderful. Read our introductory article about Kotona here.

Kotona’s topics

Design & Decoration

Fall in love with old log houses, stylish urban apartments, tiny homes (and their ingenious solutions for small spaces!), saunas, summer cottages, and other authentic Nordic dwellings. Find ideas, inspiration, and guidance for decorating your own home, and discover Finland’s unique design heritage.

Plants & Gardening

Do you adore houseplants or dream of a lush garden? At Kotona, you’ll find the best tips, creative ideas, and expert guidance. Join us in admiring balcony oases, flower gardens, and vegetable plots nurtured by talented home gardeners—places that remain beautiful year-round, even under a blanket of snow.

DIY

Whether you’re into crafts, knitting, or carpentry, you’ll find fun, easy-to-follow instructions at Kotona. With our creative ideas, you can make the most of scrap yarn, leftover paper, and other upcycled materials you already have at home. After all, our northern, wool-sock-wearing communities know exactly how to knit the coziest woolens!

Build & Renovate

Find inspiring renovation stories and marvel at astonishing before-and-after photos. At Kotona, you’ll also find practical ideas and advice for overcoming the challenges you might face when renovating or building.

Nordic Lifestyle

Delve into the captivating stories of Northern people and their distinctive ways of life. We promise you’ll discover the beauty of the unexpected!

History

Kotona is part of A-lehdet, a Finnish, family-owned media company founded in 1933. A-lehdet is a pioneer in media content, digital trade, and growth marketing. It publishes a wide range of beloved magazines and produces some of Finland’s most popular digital media. In addition to its media brands, the A-lehdet Group includes Finnish Design Shop, the world’s largest online store dedicated to Nordic design, as well as Laine Publishing, a publisher specializing in knitting and other crafts.

Editorial guidelines

Finland is among the world’s leading nations in press freedom (see the World Press Freedom Index). Finnish media have collectively established a shared set of ethical self-regulatory principles—known as the Journalistic Guidelines—which Kotona also follows with journalistic ambition.

Every article published on Kotona is written, edited, and linguistically validated by a professional. We only feature real homes, people, and photos in our stories. Most of our stories have also appeared on the Finnish-language Kotona [in Finnish], established in 2016 and now recognized as Finland’s most popular digital lifestyle media outlet dedicated to homes and living. For our English-language site, we use an AI-assisted translation tool developed in collaboration with the University of Helsinki. Each translation is reviewed and refined by a human editor.

Values

Kotona is inspiring and insightful, trustworthy and an expert, encouraging and warm, equal and inclusive, playful and a celebration of the joy of creation. We strive to spread Nordic happiness around the world, inspire sustainable choices, and promote an authentic mindset and way of life.

At Kotona, we are dedicated to inspiring and enabling a more sustainable lifestyle. While we strive to align every editorial choice—from story topics and visuals to headlines and materials—with this principle, we acknowledge that perfection is a journey. We believe that media holds a responsibility not only to inform but also to shape the dreams and aspirations of its audience. That’s why we aim to showcase lifestyles that are mindful, authentic, and in harmony with the environment. By offering practical ideas and beautiful inspiration, we hope to empower our readers to create homes and lives that are both fulfilling and sustainable.

Our team and contact details

Kotona’s 25-member editorial team in Helsinki, Finland, is supported by an in-house photography department and a wide network of freelance writers and photographers. Get to know our team and find our contact details on our Contact page.

Advertising opportunities

You can reach our B2B sales at +358 50 414 4200 or sales@a-lehdet.fi.

Follow us on social media and subscribe to our newsletter

You can find Kotona on Instagram (Kotona_living) and Facebook (Kotona Living) and Pinterest (Kotona Living)—follow us there! You can subscribe to our free newsletter here.

Send us feedback—we’d love to hear from you!