4 days ago
How influencer LEAH LANE built a treehouse hideout in her Surrey garden for £17,000
THE HOUSEHOLD
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Leah Lane, author and founder of country living Instagram account @mymulberryhouse, her husband Rupert and their children India, five, and Raef, nine.
THE PROJECT
When Lane's mother passed away during Covid, Lane wanted to invest her inheritance in a treehouse hideout in the garden of the family home in Farnham, Surrey. She uses it by day as a home office and by night as a multipurpose family space.
'We could have put the money against the mortgage, but the treehouse feels like a celebration of my mother's life – full of photos of her and knick-knacks she collected over the years,' says Lane, who named the space Castle Jude, after her mum. The build took four weeks.
THE COST
Materials (a combination of Douglas fir, C24 treated timber, joists and screws): £7,137
Corrugated tin sheets: £420
Secondhand materials (including cladding and window linings): £2,513
Labour: £4,800
Staircase kit: £522
Adhesive, fillers and primers: £1,746
TOTAL £17,138
OUTSIDE
Lane wanted to ensure she could use the space in all weathers, which meant it had to be waterproofed. She enlisted local joiner Doug Lister, who owns a sawmill in the area and who provided the wood – a combination of C24 treated timber and Douglas fir.
'There is no manual for waterproofing a treehouse,' says Lister. He came up with the plan to clad the part of the tree that meets the roof in a cone-shaped design made from fibrous rubber ('the kind used for conveyor belts'). This can bend with the movement of the tree while preventing rainwater from getting in. Lister then coated this material (along with the exterior of the treehouse) with a flashing membrane to protect the rubber from water damage and sealed it in place using a heat gun.
The base of the treehouse is on timber stilts, which are clad in tree bark to protect the wood underneath from rotting and held firmly in place by Metposts. The roof is covered in corrugated iron.
Putting the treehouse on stilts to protect it from damp meant that Lane had to get planning permission.
'I expected it to be difficult, but the local council was very supportive,' she says.
INSIDE
'I wanted it to feel like a beach shack meets antique shop,' says Lane of the distressed wood inside the treehouse. Originally, the walls were going to be made from multicoloured reclaimed wooden planks. 'I'm not a fan of the Scandinavian sauna aesthetic,' she explains. However, the budget didn't stretch that far, so she used treated timber sourced from Lister's sawmill and aged it herself.
Lane started by staining the wood before waxing and coating it in shades of dark and light blue, yellow and putty pink. She then waxed the wood again before whitewashing and sanding to distress the layers of paint underneath – without removing all the paint. 'I had planned to do something similar with the floorboards, but couldn't face it after all that,' she says.
The exterior is clad in Douglas fir and subtly decorated with textured beading. 'I didn't want it to look like a shed on stilts,' says Lane. 'If we were going to spend a significant amount of money on a treehouse, it had to look and feel special.'
STORAGE
Although the treehouse is fairly spacious, every inch has been accounted for. Lane added bespoke drawers underneath the bunk beds to store pillows, blankets and bed linen. The bunk beds themselves were designed by Lane with the help of her son Raef, who used The Lord Of The Rings as style inspiration. They function as guest beds when friends and family come to stay and transform into a sofa for family movie nights. In keeping with the Tolkien theme, the bed rails are made from naturally felled tree branches that have been chiselled to fit the space. 'It's like being in the Shire,' says Lane. Raef loves the design so much that he has written his name and age on the back of some of the planks. Hooks have been added to the walls to keep the floor clear and to hang lanterns and coats when needed.
SECONDHAND STYLING
Lane decorated the interior on a shoestring, making good use of her passion for breathing life back into beautiful old things. Furniture collected over the years and moved from the main house – such as a linen armchair taken from their 'fancy room' – sits alongside Facebook Marketplace finds, including a vintage desk and double glass doors, which Lane repainted green to blend with the outdoor scenery. The windows were upcycled from the main house.
Walls are decorated with meaningful photos and memorabilia spanning generations, including framed letters from Lane's great-grandfather to her great-grandmother during the First World War, and photos of her mother's wedding day, Lane's own wedding and her children's birthdays. 'It feels like an extension of the house,' says Lane. 'And a space that my mum would have loved.'
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