Is this area to be used by the Short Term rental people or for your families use only when you are staying there? Do your rental people park in the garage now? It seems like a lot of work moving furniture/rugs/fooseball table (which are crazy heavy!) around for I’m not sure what added benefit?? Why would people want to hang out in a garage when there is a perfectly nice house right there? Maybe a bit more info is needed on why you need this extra space and only part time?

IMO first where do you live? IMO a garage needs to be insulated well to be used for much other than cars.I assume you mean airBnB or what? I think even the sauna can cuase issues just like hot tubs your insurance will for sure go up.

Hi all - thanks for the questions. First, our insurance didn't go up with adding the sauna and hot tub, all good there. We are in west michigan, right on a lake. Currently we don't book a ton of winter renters, so the addition of the hot tub and the sauna this year is to help us book more renters in the shoulder seasons of spring, fall and winter. During June-Aug we are booked up for weekly rentals.

When we bought the house, the previous owner had a woodworking shop in the garage. There is a thermostat and heater installed above the sauna, so this is a cozy place to hang.

The reason we want to do this is to charge higher $ for each stay, have an edge against the competition and look more appealing to our renters. Our niche market is Families with kids, since we have all the fun games/toys here for traveling families. At this point just looking for Aesthetic advice on how to best remodel it with what we have.

No, currently renters don't park in our garage. The garage is heated, with a thermostat. The previous owners had a woodworking workshop out here, so we know it's plenty warm in the winter. The reason we want to do this is to create an edge against other rentals in the area, increase our prices, and we also added the sauna and hot tub to help drive up rentals in the shoulder seasons. In the summer we are completely booked, but we'd like to drive more revenue for spring fall and winter.

At this point I'm just looking for aesthetic advice on how to best make this area look appealing. Less worried about furniture I guess, and more worried about how to best rehab this area to look "cool" in rental photos. Thanks!

" The catch is we want to keep using it as a garage if bad weather comes through. So lightweight furniture that can be pushed aside, a rug that can be rolled up etc. "

" The reason we want to do this is to charge higher $ for each stay, have an edge against the competition and look more appealing to our renters. "

Those two statements will work against each other in my opinion. Were I renting I would not want to go into a garage to use a sauna or a hot tub. Maybe just me but.......................

If I paying for a lakeside rental, I would not want to hang out in a garage, no matter how nicely done. The windows are small and high and when the door is open, there will probably be bugs. When the garage doors are closed, it's probably dark.

I'm not convinced that this is going to be a money-maker for you, unless you're eager to rent to big groups of partying cheapskates.

I would not want to be in a hot tub in garage, i want to see nature.

Thanks for the additional info. I’m with everyone else as I don’t see how this is a selling feature at all, but you know your market. What I would suggest is you create separation in the garage & have one side as permanent parking for one vehicle (still not clear on why you would be schlepping furniture etc around due to weather…) Set the side up by the sauna as your hang out area but with comfortable outdoor furniture (who wants to sit on a bean bag chair after getting out of a sauna?) Industrial tiles (the kind that click together that are used in home gyms) to delineate the space with a TV mounted on the wall, maybe a fridge for cold drinks etc. I would lean in to the garage aesthetic (for lack of a better word) & keep it very industrial/ mancave-ish. Paint the long wall a dark colour. Looking forward to seeing what you come up with!

Hi Everyone, we went ahead and started demo. Pulled out all the existing overhead storage and shelving, relocated the firewood. Next step is moving wires, priming/painting light blue or white. Looking alot better so far. We'll be moving the padle boards out as well.

I totally understand most people on "not wanting to hang out in the garage", but I'd say view this as "an edge" on other houses if you can rent a house that does provide foosball, shuffleboard, pool table etc that other houses on the lake can't fit inside. In the short term rental game, its all about the pictures in getting the next booking. So trying to make this as aesthetically pleasing as I can to make it pop on the listing.

All these comments, and nobody chipping in about the legality of using garage space as living space? Fire code?

I guess if you bill it as a "game room with sauna" that's not claiming it's part of the house, but there are kinda serious rules around garage conversions...

@acm I’m fully covered in the insurance space, what we’re doing isn’t an issue.

My boys would love this as a feature in a rental house - once everything is stored and put away, you will have a better sense of what will fit

agree that an epoxy floor would make the space very crisp - but you might be able to get away with just a nice paint job for the floor for less $$ - regardless the floor needs to look crisp and super clean to make the space feel more ”interior”

I would spray everything on the walls and ceiling white or some other color maybe a dark gray for drama? - there is a lot of visual clutter and having it all one color will camoflauge a lot of it

I would get a few of the outdoor polypropoleneline rugs from Lowes in bright color for under the foosball table and seating - they are light and easy to roll up but will help define the hangout space

don’t forget some fun lighting, the overheads in the garage will be dismal

I might re think beanbags esp if the floor is going to be hard to keep clean - I would at least look at patio chairs from ikea - many of them are stackable - putting them around a game table would give them some purpose, my boys would prob play cards and quarters out there lol

FWIW A fold up ping pong table would also be fun for the space - seems like more ages enjoy ping pong than foosball but that could just be our experience (we’ve had both)

A few bubble bursting comments...

- That's not really a sauna, much less any kind of 'high end sauna'. A sauna is typically about 8.5' high so that benches can be high enough to avoid cold toes. That looks like no more than 7' high? Inexpensive kits like that also often cannot reach sauna temps.

- A sauna in a garage where there is the possibility of any kind of fumes/voc's is a really bad idea. When you're in a sauna your body is already stressed from the heat and what you need is good fresh air from outside, not stale inside air and certainly not air combined with fumes/voc's. Hopefully you at least have good mechanical ventilation for the sauna to pull fresh air in from outside. There's still the issue of stepping out of it and breathing bad garage air.

- Further on that last point. Fumes from petrol cars permeate everything and the resulting voc's hang around for weeks or months. This should either be a garage OR converted to a livable space, NOT both back and forth unless you have a wish to have a shortened life with COPD or other respiratory issues for your latter years.

@opaone, this is a $10k infrared DRY sauna so trust me when I say it’s high end https://www.sunlighten.com/saunas/mpulse-infrared-saunas/conquer/
These saunas are typically found in luxury spas and are sought after for their health benefits derived from infrared.

To be clear, we won’t be parking cars in here more than 3-5 days a year at most. Just wanted to not fully convert it so we had options. Thanks for your concerns on fumes.

@opaone, this is a $10k infrared DRY sauna so trust me when I say it’s high end https://www.sunlighten.com/saunas/mpulse-infrared-saunas/conquer/
These saunas are typically found in luxury spas and are sought after for their health benefits derived from infrared.

Sorry, but that's a $10k bit of marketing, not a sauna.

"A sauna is a wood lined room heated to a temperature of about 75-105°c by a large mass of stones. Water is thrown on the stones to produce steam that when combined with pure fresh air and even convective heat around bather’s bodies results in the löyly that saunas are famous for."

Don't believe everything you read in marketing plop. Saunas are very different from IR booths like that. You should make clear in your ads that it's an IR booth. If someone goes there expecting a sauna and gets that they might be quite angry.

I hope your project is going well- any updates? I am in Wisconsin and we're about to put a sauna/outdoor shower combo in our detatched garage too. It's traditional, not infrared. We are creating an exterior door and separate changing room so you do not go through the garage to get to the sauna though. I wouldn't want to go through a garage or have it open into the garage space like that. We don't park in our garage but it's still a garage.

We recently rented a place with a crappy sauna kit in the basement (right in front of a foosball table) that was oversold. It didn't meet our expectations based on photos and descriptions...then reviews may suffer.

I am probably a target renter though. :) My family loves these places. I don't mind hanging out in a garage that gets used for vehicles but it's more like a tinker space, music and folding chairs, my kids especially would. I agree that bringing cars into the space you describe is not a complementary use. As a renter I'd look for a clean garage with airflow so when we're hanging out the doors can be left open to alleviate car smells- not a "room" feel. Basically, minimalist, clean, airflow, NO textiles or tv's.

@molman, it sounds like you're covering the important bases for a sauna in a garage. We've been doing some research with realtors and what we're seeing is that every sauna stuck in to a garage gets ripped out. It's just not a nice place for most people to spend time. Your's sounds like it should be a much nicer space!

Please post updates as your project progresses.

If you've not already, make sure to read through Trumpkin's Notes and the Secrets of Finnish Sauna Design book.