Efteling fan Michel built candy house Hans and Grietje in his backyard

The cottage is indistinguishable from real. According to Michel, it is just under 2 meters high. The sweets, the roof tiles and the cakes: everything is right in detail. “Until the Efteling demolished the real house and rebuilt,” laughs Michel. Yet he continues to like the old, familiar house of the past.

For five years, doing odd jobs almost every day. How much time the total took? “Hundreds of hours! I don’t really want to know. And I certainly don’t want to know what all that material has cost,” he laughs.

The creative person has made much more. The huge gate in Efteling style, a gigantic window, the world-famous musical mushroom, a fairy tale pond, two trash cans from the park, a book with the dancing shoes and the sign of Hans and Grietje. Only the picnic bench in his garden still seems ‘normal’. “I will also paint that in the colors of Anton Pieck,” he laughs.

In fact, Michel no longer has to go to Efteling: he can just stay in his garden. “But I go to Efteling almost every day and I keep going,” he says. “Just a few hours. A round of fairy tale forest is enough for me.”

The passion for Efteling is made for him. Literally: For on his arm he has a tattoo with a little thumb, the mushroom, the red shoes and the fairy tale the six swans. “Seeing Efteling, never bores,” he laughs.

Michel is a pastry chef in Raamsdonksveer. Yet he did not make his house of candy. He previously made an Efteling cake from Marzipan. “It was gone within half an hour,” he laughs. “It’s nice to make something permanent.” The neighbors? “They love it, especially the little ones.”

“It’s a relief that the house is finished,” says Michel. Yet the next project is already in the making. “I want gates with the famous curls, which are also in the Fairytale Forest. I just continue.”