Salla and Jussi’s renovation journey in their 260-square-meter art nouveau villa: “Everything had reached the end of its lifespan”

Driving along the main road, you first pass a strawberry farm, then a cheese factory advertising ice cream, and finally a small butcher shop. Eventually, the gravel road turns into driveway. At its end stands a magnificent art nouveau style house, featuring two mansard-roof gables with an ornate glass veranda nestled between them.

Diagonally across from the main house, there is a two-story garden building combining brick and wood, which may have once been a cowshed. In the middle of the garden, beside a giant linden tree, there’s yet a third house. It’s not a modest cottage either, but an older log-built farmhouse.

At the porch door, we are greeted by Salla Lahtinen, holding her two-year-old son Noel. She guides us into the living room.

House: A log house built in 1906 in Pälkäne, Finland. 260 m² with living room, hall, kitchen, entrance hall, porch, utility room, toilet, sauna and bathroom, 4 bedrooms, cold attic, and outbuildings. The house has six fireplaces, a wood-burning stove, and supplemental pellet-powered central heating. Plot size 9,686 m².

Residents: Salla and Jussi Lahtinen, and their children Noel, 3, Eemil, 5, and baby Isla.

On Instagram: @Vanhakokkola1906

“Behind those doors at the other end of the house, there’s the hall and a few other rooms that are still a work in progress,” Salla says.

Salla and Jussi Lahtinen traded their three-room apartment in East Helsinki for a 260-square-meter log house in 2019. The idea of moving to the countryside was appealing but also caused some hesitation: would they have enough time to repair an old house just as their family was growing?

“We looked at both new and old houses. One of our main wishes was a separate garden building with space for hobbies,” says Jussi, who is keen on woodworking.

They found the perfect house in the heart of Häme.

“From here, it’s almost the same distance to my workplace in Hämeenlinna as it is to Jussi’s in Tampere,” notes Salla.

Before moving to Pälkäne, the couple considered rescuing an abandoned farm in Mäntsälä.

“Every place we looked at had something nice about it. This one had everything,” says Salla.

“Except a garage,” Jussi jumps in.

This house was built in 1906 as the main building of the farm and was expanded with an annex, possibly as soon as in the 1940s or 1950s. The current extension was built in 2006.

“This was unlike any other house we looked at. It’s a typical art nouveau style building. The house has served various purposes over the years, including as a children’s home during World War II,” Jussi explains.

Three sturdy beams divide the main room ceiling into four sections. The vaulted ceiling looks like it could belong to an even older building. Was the ceiling perhaps inspired by historical design in the spirit of national romanticism?

National romanticism in Finland developed from art nouveau into its own style movement at the turn of the 20th century. It was inspired by nationalism and the quest to find genuine Finnishness in, for instance, old rustic buildings.

In Salla and Jussi’s house, there are art nouveau elements in the geometric decorative carvings of the door frames, as well. This house was built meticulously and with a generous budget.

The condition survey report didn’t offer the couple much hope.

“Every possible thing had exceeded its technical lifespan,” Jussi says.

Most of the repairs were needed—and not entirely unexpectedly—in the 30-square-meter new extension. The terrace built onto its side was attached to the house in such a way that water had seeped into the wall. Jussi made new foundations and detached the porch from the house.

New insulation was installed inside, and the exterior got new cladding where needed.

The roof was in good condition, having been replaced either in the 1980s or 1990s. The base floor is also high and well-ventilated.

Jussi and Salla have been making repairs gradually. Their previous experience was limited to surface renovations in apartments. They sought information from sources like Panu Kaila’s popular books on traditional building.

They started the renovation soon after moving in, beginning with Salla and Jussi’s bedroom. Early on, they also decided to update the surfaces of the room between the kitchen and the former dining hall. Unexpected tasks took a lot of time.

“We had to remove hundreds of nails from the bedroom floor. Their heads would have immediately torn the sandpaper,” Salla says.

Removing the acrylic paint from doors, ceilings, and moldings also required perseverance.

“We decided to use only breathable linseed oil paints,” Salla says.

However, the couple didn’t want to wait around for days for the slow-drying linseed oil to dry. Instead, they added paint drier to the mix. The additive speeds up drying so the paint can be recoated in a day instead of the usual three days.

They applied wood fiber boards onto the bedroom walls, followed by fresh new wallpaper.

Installing the wide cornices was a learning experience of its own. The room was ready in four months.

When Salla and Jussi bought the house, the kitchen was a mix of mid-20th-century high-tech and early 2000s kitchen cabinet styles.

“During the demolition, we discovered that three doorways had been left behind the cabinets, filled with fiberglass insulation—perfect nesting spots for mice,” says Jussi.

They covered the door recesses with wood to prevent mouse damage. The wall was leveled, and 12-millimeter spruce plywood was screwed on as backing for the cabinets and paneling. The final surface is beadboard paneling, which was also used to cover the new corner pantry. An old chest was repurposed as the sink cabinet. Jussi made the cabinets himself from glued laminated timber.

This is what the kitchen looked like before the renovation:

A special feature of the kitchen is the wood stove, likely from the 1950s, which was once the heat source for the house’s hydronic heating system.

The couple considered the color scheme carefully. They ordered several small paint cans to test the colors under different lighting conditions to find the right shade.

The most stunning details are the backsplashes behind the sink and stove, which Jussi made from copper sheets. He hammered them himself to achieve the lively surface.

The couple’s principle has been to repair only what’s necessary.

The old floorboards of the cold floor in the former dining hall were carefully removed. The insulation consisted of dry sawdust topped with sand.

“We removed the sand and added more sawdust on top, followed by an air barrier paper before reinstalling the old boards,” Jussi explains.

They got additional insulation material from a small log house Jussi had bought for renovation materials. The recycled logs were also useful for repairing the entrance floor. The floor had been sagging, which turned out to be caused by a deteriorated bottom beam.

“Apparently, the roof had been leaking at some point,” Jussi speculates.

In five years, Jussi and Salla have renovated about 80 square meters out of the 260. It has required patience, but renovating an old house isn’t a sprint—it’s more like a marathon.