John Looser, a skillful carpenter from Toronto, Canada, builds regular wood mansions for birds.

The 46-year-old carpenter used to work on human houses, but he had to retire after 20 years, due to to a serious car accident that left him with a terrible condition – fibromyalgia. The pain associated with it has no boundaries and most people describe it as deep muscular aching, throbbing, shooting, stabbing and intense burning. The stiffness and pain are worst in the morning and in muscle groups that are used repetitively. Although he had to retire as a house builder for humans, John Looser kept working in residential construction, only his new clients were birds.

“Building birdhouses helps keep my mind busy so that I don’t notice my pain so much,” says John. “As long as I can stay busy, I don’t feel like my muscles are going to seize up and stop moving.” says John, who also suffers from sleeplessness, getting up at 6 am and  working for 8 – 10 hours a day. The small size of his beautiful birdhouses, in comparison with human buildings, allows him to exercise his passion for building houses.

Inspired by Victorian architecture, and other European styles, John Looser’s bird mansions are functional wooden masterpieces that could easily find a place in an art gallery or museum. He uses decades, sometimes centuries old reclaimed wood to build these giant birdhouses, some of which can accommodate up to 103 pairs of birds and feature fly-through tunnels and pools. John builds them from scratch, in his kitchen and spends days, sometimes weeks working on them. To him, seeing the birds flocking to the luxury birdhouses he built from them is the greatest reward.

Sparrows, swallows and purple martins make up the majority of tenants in the birdhouses John Looser has on his property, but he can build them to accommodate any bird species. The incredible design of his wooden mansions has caught the attention of bird lovers everywhere and the skilled carpenter claims he has received orders from all over the world, from Europe to Australia. The prices for his bird homes range from $200 to $2,500, but he also sells building plans and instructions on his official website – Extreme Birdhouse.

Photos courtesy of ExtremeBirdhouse.com