Mushroom Kingdom Room (Toadstool Included)
I am Azmi, writing from Meknes, and I have a confession about rabbit rooms: most of them I forget within minutes, but the mushroom kingdom room I will remember for years. A bag-end hide, a literal toadstool stool, a mushroom tunnel, and two fluffy cuties ruling over all of it. The original note calls it my paradise, their palace, and that double vision is exactly right. It is a human daydream that also functions as rabbit architecture.
What strikes me first is the courage of the theme. A mushroom kingdom could easily collapse into clutter: red paint everywhere, toadstools on every surface, a room screaming its concept so loudly the rabbits cannot hear themselves think. This one does not do that. Each piece earns its floor space. Each piece does a job. The whimsy serves the rabbits instead of using them as props, and that is the difference between decoration and design.
Decision one: the toadstool that works for a living
Start with the star of the show, the literal toadstool stool, which began life as a cat post and now serves as a lookout with windowsill access. I admire a conversion like this enormously. A sturdy post wrapped and capped into a toadstool gives rabbits a staircase to the window, a survey point over their territory, and a satisfying object to circle. Height matters to rabbits more than people realise. A rabbit who can climb a foot or two and look down on the room is a rabbit who owns the room, and owned rooms are relaxed rooms.
I also appreciate the honesty of repurposing. Rabbit people are the great adapters of the pet world. Cat furniture becomes rabbit furniture. Storage cubes become castles. My own rooms in Meknes run on the same philosophy, and my notes on rabbits eating every flooring in my enclosure notes taught me to judge every surface by tooth and claw before I judge it by looks. A toadstool is only a good toadstool if its covering survives investigation, its base cannot tip, and nothing on it flakes into curious mouths. This one clearly passes inspection, because the residents use it with the confidence of landlords.
Decision two: hide, tunnel, repeat
Then the engine room of the kingdom: the house plus tunnel combination, the hide-jump-repeat circuit that keeps rabbits exercised and sane. The original note lists a bag-end hide, the round-doored cosy that every rabbit recognises as home on sight, plus a mushroom tunnel connecting the world together. Together they form a loop, and loops are everything. A rabbit who can run a circuit, hide, dash, and reappear is a rabbit writing her own adventure story ten times a day.
Tunnels deserve more respect than they get. They are burrows for animals who cannot dig the garden, and they turn zoomies from frantic laps into purposeful travel. I think of my own enrichment notes on how mine play with stacking cups and snuffle mats whenever I see a good tunnel setup, because the principle matches: the best toys are the ones rabbits use without instruction. Nobody teaches a rabbit to run through a tunnel. The tunnel simply reminds them of something ancient, and off they go.
Decision three: residents first, theme second
Now the residents, because a palace means nothing without its rulers. The note contains my favourite sentence of the whole batch: thought there was one bunny at first, there are three. The kingdom hides them well. Any rabbit room that conceals its own population is a room with enough cover, enough corners, enough genuine choice about where to be. Three chunky cuties counted twice, melting into hides and tunnels and toadstool shade, each invisible whenever invisibility feels right.
That invisibility is a welfare signal I trust completely. Rabbits who can disappear choose when to appear, and rabbits who appear by choice are relaxed in a way no forced cuddle can manufacture. The wide shot of the chunky paradise shows a room that understands this: open floor for running, edges full of options, everything chewable or climbable or hideable. Paradise is assemblable, the note says, and the residents approve. I believe the residents. Their body language in every photo is the review that matters.
What fellow builders should steal
The note mentions sourcing for fellow builders, and here is my builder’s summary from Meknes. Steal the conversion mindset before you steal the shopping list: look at sturdy pet furniture and ask what it could become. Steal the loop, because a room with a circuit beats a room with scattered toys every time. Steal the restraint, because three themed pieces plus good flooring beat thirty decorations. And steal the counting game. If your room sometimes hides your own rabbits from you, you have built something right.
I will end where the note ends, with love for the whole project. My paradise, their palace. I keep rooms for my rabbits here in Meknes, and the best moments are always the shared ones: me sitting on the floor admiring a corner, a rabbit flopping in that exact corner as if to confirm the design choice. Somewhere in the mushroom kingdom tonight, a chunky cutie is loafed inside a bag-end hide, another is surveying the realm from toadstool height, and the third is somewhere nobody can find. The kingdom is complete. Long may it stand, toadstool included.
Next in this chapter…
Vinegar Pro-Tip: White Funk Melts Away
I am Azmi in Meknes, and the most valuable thing I own cost less than bread: a bottle of white…
Escape Artists: How Do They Get Out?
I am Azmi in Meknes, first-time owner of two eleven-week-old escape artists, and for a week my large pen held…
Pippin vs the Robot Vacuum (Treats Help)
I am Azmi, writing from my living room in Meknes, and I can now draw you a map of this…