dose of happiness

Get ready for a home tour like none you’ve ever seen.

How many movies have we seen as kids featuring houses with crazy, cool hidden passages tucked away behind bookshelves, fireman poles in lieu of stairs, and secret rooms filled with nothing but childish novelties? Enough to where it's a fantasy that sticks with many of us well into adulthood.

For the Flom family, this dream is actually a reality. In a TikTok that has a whopping 18.7 million views, Anna Rothfuss takes us on a tour of the most delightful “Trap-Door-House,” which was created by her husband Justin Flom, who just so happens to be a world renowned magician, known best for his YouTube series and television show Wizard Wars.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

In the clip, Rothfuss wakes up in the bedroom-slash-foam-pit (a “project” Flom is working on, apparently), and then mosies downstairs using auto belay system to gt to the kitchen to make breakfast. A breakfast which, of course, is in a pantry thant’s behind a “secret moving bookshelf.”

But wait, the day has only just begun. Having had brekkie, Rothfuss has now moved onto laundry, only instead of using a "regular old laundry chute,” she uses one with a fireman’s pole added inside. This home upgrade is very popular with the kiddos, unsurprisingly.

Saving the most magical items for last, Rothfuss then shows us a toilet paper wall in the bathroom (cause why not?), a “cozy” loft made of netting above the stairs for the kids, and a “Dr. Pepper passageway” that leads to a hidden door in the wallpaper that opens to their Blockbuster-fied movie room. No joke.

On his website, Flom describes himself as “just a kid magician with grown up money,” and his home as the physical manifestation of his “creative spirit and ability to transform ordinary spaces into realms of fantasy and fun.” After seeing this tour, we don’t think anyone would argue with that statement.

And certainly, folks had lots of thoughts about this wonderfully whimsical house.

Many jokingly mused about how well the house could handle big feelings. “Imagine being angry and having to go downstairs in the gently auto belay,” quipped one viewer, while another echoed, “I can imagine crying on a bad day and floating down stairs is so embarrassing.” Others hailed it a “thief’s worst nightmare,” what with the many different rooms and all.

Another simply noted something we were all thinking: ““Finally I clean the mirror behind the Dr.Pepper passageway is truly a sentence I never thought I would hear.”

And perhaps this was the best comment of all: “I need to remember more often that I have free will as an adult.”

And that really nails it on the head, doesn’t it? Unlike most polished, curated, color coordinated home tours we see go viral on social media, this one reminds us to give ourselves permission to let our homes honor that child spirit within us all. Maybe it won’t look like a giant foam pit in the bedroom, or maybe it will! The point is to open our minds to what’s possible, rather than what’s acceptable.

Follow Justin Flom on TikTok for even more of these awesome videos.