Combo photo shows Ella’s secret room. Photo: ellasecretstreet / Instagram.

A six-year-old girl in England has some unusual things in her wardrobe. And the whole collection points to one thing: the world of Harry Potter. All due to the coronavirus.

The coronavirus lockdown can lead to a lot of lethargy and inertia among a lot of people. But it also unleashes some great creativity that wows many.

Inside a children’s wardrobe, full of colourful dresses, there’s the faint outline of a wizard’s wand shop. Push past the clothes and a magical street comes into view, with a Flourish and Blotts bookshop, an Eyelops Owl Emporium and Ollivander’s. All of the shops, discerning fans will know, are from JK Rowling’s Harry Potter series.

But the Diagon Alley tribute isn’t part of a Warner Bros. studio tour, it’s in six-year-old Ella’s spare room in Berkshire.

 While many of us may have used the lockdown to brood over a condition that nobody wanted, soaking in loads of self-pity, Ella’s dad decided to do something different: unleash his imagination on his own house. He’s part of a collective of exceptional people who have concocted and built epic, and downright peculiar things, which they may never have had the time, concentration, or inclination to do pre-coronavirus.

Dylan created the whole surprise Harry Potter street from scratch in his home after he was forced to cancel a trip to Disneyland with Ella. The single working dad spent months jotting down ideas and planning the big reveal, and built the entire miniature street in a month and six days, plus 16 nights. “Everyone has ideas all the time,” explains Dylan who is adamant anyone can be as creative as him during lockdown. “Write down your ideas and come back to them.”

With the help of his artistic mum (who painted the shop signs) and his friend Rob, whose company works with Shepperton/Pinewood Studios meaning he had high-spec equipment they could use to cut the MDF (medium-density fibreboard)  to size, they worked together to create Berkshire’s wizarding world. "You can do something, no matter how small," he says.

And it’s not finished yet. Dylan is currently building a shop at the end of the street. “I’ve done the walls and I’m doing the inside,” he says. “It’s toys, sweets and jokes. I’m going to try and make the upstairs bit of it look like a toy shop and then it will turn into the Gryffindor common room.”

The big secret was revealed to Ella during a game of hide and seek. “The first thing she said was ‘I can see it!’ and [then] “can we keep this here forever?’” Actor Tom Felton who plays Draco Malfoy in the films later posted a message to Ella on social media, making the experience complete. “Welcome to Slytherin Ella,” he said.

Projects like Dylan’s are exactly what the world needs right now; not only are they a distraction from the coronavirus but they’ve connected people and spread positivity. “People are scared in these unpredictable times. There’s nothing out there, all the events are cancelled, all the shows and entertainment for kids are gone,” says Farvardin Daliri from Australia, who built an enormous kookaburra bird during lockdown., according to the Independent.

Giant kookaburra

In March, Daliri – from Brisbane – began constructing a four-metre-tall and 11-metre-wide kookaburra that weighs 750kg. It is completely made from steel, aside from its feathery exterior, which is made from bamboo and straw that, when painted, has the appearance of fluffy feathers. The bird even has switches that hook up to Daliri’s car, which make it laugh.

After soon as post-lockdown travel restrictions lifted in Australia, he went on a joy-spreading journey, stopping at towns spanning 5,000 miles, with his mega kookaburra in tow. He visited hundreds of schools, nursing homes, and hospitals, with the sole purpose of brightening people’s moods.

Meanwhile, on the west coast of America, in Napa, California, where some of the strictest coronavirus restrictions in the country are in place, architecture student Sean LaRochelle decided to build an alpine-themed rollercoaster in his parent’s garden as a distraction from the world.

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With a bit of set designing and construction work under his belt, he roped in friends and family to complete the amusement ride, which pays homage to Disney’s Matterhorn Bobsled, the first rollercoaster LaRochelle ever went on as a child.

As community projects go, the wackiest creation we’ve found so far was used to terrify local residents into taking coronavirus seriously. Sudhakar Yadav, who runs the Sudha Cars Museum in Hyderabad, India, built a movable ‘coronavirus’ car in the record time of a week, to help spread awareness of the disease. With a giant green frame and prickles, cleverly made out of giant chess pieces, plus a scooter engine that propels the big globular vehicle around the streets of his home town, his coronavirus car can travel up to 25 mph.