Favorite everyday life in a favorite home – and in a favorite city
Emilia and Niko Halonen are building the home of their dreams in Seinäjoki. A strip of green space opens up behind the plot. The forested scenery of the brand-new, still-under-construction detached housing area is pleasing.
– Our terrace gets sunlight well into the evening. We often sit here, on the terrace of the half-finished house, and dream about everyday life in our own home. From the large windows the view is like a constantly changing painting, Emilia Halonen muses.
Work brought Niko, who is originally from Iisalmi, and Emilia, who grew up in Lapua, to Seinäjoki, and since then they haven’t felt the urge to move elsewhere. Emilia is an early childhood education teacher, and Niko works at a food factory.
Now they stand on their own wooded plot a few kilometers from the town center and marvel at their luck.
– Before buying the plot we had searched for suitable detached houses around Seinäjoki, but nothing felt to fully match our wishes. We wanted lots of space for the children, the chance to live close to nature and yet near services. We were lucky in the plot allocation when we got exactly this spot we wanted, Emilia says.
Best at home
– ‘They’ll do in the dark!’
The spouse’s recent quip from Savo makes Emilia laugh. Niko had been trying on shoes at a shop that were comfortable but didn’t completely please him in appearance. The man’s remark about shoes that “do in the dark” has become an inside joke in the family. It fits many situations when something doesn’t go perfectly.
The couple is not building their new house using a ‘they’ll do in the dark’ method. They want their light wooden house to be just their own, suitable for family life with children, for visits from friends and for relaxed lounging.
Building their own house has proceeded briskly. The plot was bought from the city in June, work on the foundations began in July, and now in September the Jetta house package has been raised to its ridge, and interior work is next.
The couple doesn’t exactly have prior building experience, but they will soon. “You learn by doing,” they say cheerfully.
– There’s a lot to consider. Right now we’re puzzling over where and in which direction the stairs to the upper floor will go, Emilia says standing in the middle of the future full-height living room.
– Although we got a house package and are doing a lot ourselves and with the help of relatives, building professionals are also needed. They, and skilled ones, have been found well in the area, Niko says.
The builders also give praise to the city.
– Beforehand people kind of scared us that the permit bureaucracy would be difficult and that getting answers would take time, but it wasn’t like that at all. All questions were responded to quickly. There was no stress with the permits at all, Niko says.
The union of Savo-born Niko and Ostrobothnian Emilia is like it was written in the stars, so harmoniously do the Halonens live together.
– There are indeed many differences between people from Savo and people from Ostrobothnia, and the biggest is talkativeness, Niko notes.
Emilia agrees. She says that Niko’s sociability and outgoing nature have proved very useful traits in the house project as well.
– Niko knows how to tender all the construction work and materials, whereas as an Ostrobothnian I would accept the first offer. I just can’t bring myself to. Thanks to Niko the building budget has stayed under control.
Perhaps due to the influence of his talkativeness, after the couple’s recent wedding-trip to Italy, “half” of Emilia’s Ostrobothnian relatives were speaking fluent Savo dialect. The Ostrobothnian way of speaking has not rubbed off on Niko, not even after ten years living on the plains.
A celebration of dialects can be expected at the Halonens’ long table at the edge of the forest when the house is eventually ready to move into.
– What we look forward to most are unhurried weekends when you can calmly eat, talk and enjoy, adults and children together.
The Halonens are Seinäjoki city’s “construction ambassadors”, meaning their building project can be followed on the @lempicasa account on Instagram and on Niko’s TikTok @nikoelias95.
