A garden designer from England built a mushroom-shaped house for his daughter, bringing her imaginary world to life. That’s why it likely didn’t surprise him when, in 2015, his daughter, then 11, asked, “Dad, can you build me a house the shape of a mushroom?” Mr. Swansborough replied, “Of course! I will one day.
” After a few months had passed, the young girl reminded her daddy of her request. But Mr. Swansborough said he was busy.
Eventually, she told him that she’d saved 500 pounds ($600) and wanted him to use it to build the house. Seeing his daughter longing for her dream house, Mr. Swansborough couldn’t say no.
Although Mr. Swansborough had done other builds involving fencing and decking, he had never built anything like what his daughter requested. He was motivated by the challenge.
“Once I started, I got carried away,” he said. “I was doing it every single chance I got, on weekends and evenings, and sparing no expense, really, to just get it to be as amazing as I could.” The building process involved several challenges.
Since England can be rainy, Mr. Swansborough often worked under a tent. Accessing the house was another challenge—Mr.
Swansborough had to put up scaffolding so that he could climb to the higher points of the home. Another obstacle was the simple issue of having a large building above a small central building. “And then the real hard bit was the curved roof,” he said.
“[I] had to get special plywood that bends and had to ge.