This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Jayden Lee, 27, a Century 21 Canada real estate agent who built a wellness hub in his townhouse garage in the Vancouver suburb of Chilliwack, British Columbia. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
As a teenager, I had cancer. Then, in 2020, I lost my mom, and in 2021, I lost one of my best friends. I’ve found that focusing on my health and wellness helps me feel mentally grounded, and it has become very important to me.
In 2022, I was in a rut, so I went to a health and wellness retreat that had saunas and cold plunges. Nothing had ever made me feel quite the way they did.
I wanted to experience that feeling every day, so when I returned from the trip, I decided to transform my garage into a health and wellness space.
My garage has a sauna, cold plunge, and red-light therapy machine. A lot of people think you need a big house or a yard to do something like this, but I live in a 1,400-square-foot townhouse. Before the transformation, my garage was just a storage area filled with junk.
Now, instead of inviting my friends over for a drink in the garage, we use the sauna and cold plunge. That’s exactly what I wanted — a place where I could host, they felt at home, and we could spend time together doing something healthy and productive.
Transforming my garage was pretty easy
I wouldn’t call my garage a “man cave” because I think both women and men would love to have a space like this.
The idea had been in my head for a couple of years, but I needed to save some money before I could make it happen. I finally started the project in September 2024.
The space was fairly easy to design. Within a week, I painted the walls, laid artificial grass on the garage floor, and strung patio lights across the ceiling.
I wanted the garage to feel like an outdoor space, and the grass and lights help create that atmosphere. I also often leave the garage door open, which makes it feel even more connected to the outdoors.
The sauna and cold plunge took a couple of months to arrive, so completing the space was a gradual process. I also added a red-light therapy setup and hung my bike on the wall as part of the display.
The sauna was the biggest expense, at about $4,000. The cold plunge cost roughly $3,000, and I spent another couple of thousand dollars on everything else. Altogether, I’ve invested about $10,000 in the project.
In the future, I’d love to turn the back room connected to the garage into a gym or another wellness space.
It’s way more convenient to have everything at home
Before I had a cold plunge in my garage, I would drive about 10 minutes to a nearby lake and sit in the cold water most days. I also have friends who live within 15 minutes of me, so I could go to their houses to use theirs, but realistically, I wasn’t going to do that every day.
Having the sauna and cold plunge in my garage has made life much easier. Now, I can just walk downstairs and use them whenever I want.
I usually do the cold plunge in the morning because getting into three-degree water first thing wakes me right up. At night, I alternate between 20 minutes in the sauna and two minutes in the cold plunge, repeating the cycle about three times. I always finish with the sauna because the warmth makes it easier to fall asleep afterward.
I can genuinely notice a difference between the days when I use the sauna and cold plunge and the days when I don’t. I feel calmer and more energized overall.
I love the dopamine rush, but it has also taught me how to stay in control during stressful situations. When you enter cold water, your body goes into fight-or-flight mode. Learning to remain calm in that moment has helped me handle challenges in other parts of my life.
Many people want a dedicated wellness space at home
I’m really happy with the space, and I’m glad that so many other people like it too. I’ve posted several videos of my garage on social media, and they’ve done pretty well. One of them got more than a million views.
People clearly want a space like this — or they’re at least intrigued by the idea. I often get tagged in photos and videos of people’s garage transformations.
I have a lot of friends who are also into saunas and cold plunges, and some of them have their own setups at home. One of my friends is a home builder, and he recently included a sauna in one of his new builds as a selling feature.
I think that, especially since the pandemic, people have become more interested in feeling their best every day. Health and wellness have become increasingly popular, and more people are drinking less and choosing activities like running, using saunas, and taking cold plunges. Having those options at home and being able to use them every day can be a game changer.
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