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my2scents

"Palace of the Clowns"

my2scents
9 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Join us as we experience the adventures of building a home at the Palace of the Clowns! This magical adventure is based on the actual experiences of real people with wonderful imaginations. I have posted what we have written together so far (from Every House Deserves A Name); now it's up to you to help us finish this Design Dilemma!!

Comments (143)

  • havingfun
    8 years ago

    well, if you mean mine, sure though I am not sure it is that good, just thought i would some passing salute to design. tehehe

  • Vintage...VJ Jazzy Jazz
    8 years ago
    last modified: 8 years ago

    GUYS ....All OF THIS IS AWESOME .... Keep it going please ..

    :@).....

    fun -in -da -HOUZZ ....all design related of course

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=r5XX9LX2es4

  • joannpb
    8 years ago

    "OMG!" she squeaked (her voice was as small as her person), "I know what a Tardis is. Someone blew through the White Queen's garden in one, but didn't stay long enough to be introduced.

    "Where are you? Who are you? Can you get me back to Wonderland, or at least back to the rabbit hole.

    "Come on, kid," I said, "Disembodied voices are pretty common around here, and I'd think you would have learned to suspend belief, by now, what with smoking caterpillars, dancing oysters, teapot mice, etc. where you've been.

    "If we can just get you to Fred, he has a giant hot shower that, given your size, will probably wash you right down the drain and back to where you came from. If that doesn't work, well, he has some awesome mac and cheese that makes everyone feel better."

    With that, I took her hand, dragged her out of the rocking chair and towed her toward a stone archway cut into the far wall.

  • havingfun
    8 years ago

    We entered a cavernous room

    in which a disembodied voice did boom.

    "Off with your head, you very silly rabbit

    You are turning this job into a habit!"

    "No nooonnnoo mam, no sooner do i redo the space

    Then a designer throws something new in my face.

    100s of years the carrera has stood here,

    proving something precious and dear.

    Mirrors on counters every metal and style

    chandeliers above each, all the while.

    Adjusting skype so you may see

    at the table the great melee!"

    And sure enough in the very middle of the space,

    A giant table harkening back to king arthurs dace!

    Around it danced 100s of peoples

    With tiles and wood samples and stone fragments in steeples

    declaring this and that were the very best style.

    The room went on for many a mile,

    and the table grew with every minute!

    Alice and I ran to the door, but it had split.

    Rabbit -how do we leave this space you twit?

    Um, use this mirror, but take me before i am banished

    in a single bound we lept in the mirror and the room behind us vanished.

    .....


  • Fiona
    8 years ago

    We were in a dark space, with bodies tightly packed around us. Alice clutched my hand and had a little sniffle. A cord was gently tickling my face, so I reached up and pulled it, light bathed the little room, coming from a glorious chandelier.

    Alice let out a little whimper as Wolf gave her a big sniff, a gasp of surprise on spying the orangutan with the hurdy gurdy, her mouth fell open as she took in the whole troupe. Darling Ele reached out and gently stroked Alice's face with her trunk, then grasping Alice around her waist lifted her out of the crush of the bodies and onto her back.

    I looked around trying to work out where we were.

  • rredpenn
    8 years ago

    We'd been gone for a long, long time. That was obvious. So much had changed in the Palace that I hardly recognized it! There were walls and doorways now, and a bank of beautiful dark stained walnut cupboards lined the room to our left. Alice, on the elephant's back, was staring at the view out the back of the room, the mountainside bursting with green treetops swaying in the gentle breezes.

    "This is beautiful!" gasped Alice. "So much like home! Can we please stay?"

    "Not yet," quipped Fred, appearing from around a corner, his legs covered in nasty bruises. "We have much more to do. Besides, there isn't even cable tv, yet!"

    He was holding something...some sort of dried up pink thing...out by his pliers. "Would anyone care to explain why I found this in the toilet?"

    (Apparently, the Palace was still being haunted by clowns...)

  • stryker
    8 years ago

    (lol, rred!)

  • stryker
    8 years ago

    "Thaaat's a baaaaad flaaaaper, Fred" bleated the sheep.

    We were scratching our heads as she explained the toilet's malfunction and how she had turned off the water so it wouldn't keep running all the time. How does a sheep turn that knob...?

    I had to remember that time seemed to lose meaning at the Palace. It had doors, right? I distinctly remembered doors...yet maybe that was a vision of the future, for not a single interior door could I see. It was almost like they hadn't even been ordered yet.

    Well what was this blasted key for then?

    The hotness of the key against my chest, the weight of it on my neck as it hung from the scarlet ribbon, pressed me even further backward in time to a distant memory...oh please not that one...of my first encounter with Bozo, at a birthday party. The haunting laughter...

    I shook my head to clear it, and yet the laughter remained, as creepy, and menacing, as when I first heard it those many years ago.

  • joannpb
    8 years ago

    And then I realized that, if viewed straight-on, the key was a tiny replica of

    Bozo's head. That meant I was seeking a Bozo-head-shaped key hole.

  • havingfun
    8 years ago

    Life began to take on an all new meaning, figures of It danced through my head. Does anyone have Stephen King on speed dial? noone sees any storm drains around do they? As we all warily looked for storm drains, Alice said she saw a little slit just over her head. So Alice came down and took the Hurdy gurdy and the orang went up ele's trunk with the key, stuck it in that little rip in the space time and continuum. while everyone clicked their heels 3 times.....

  • stryker
    8 years ago

    ...and I thought, the closer we get to the end, the farther it gets away...

  • havingfun
    8 years ago

    It as in the end or It as in Stephen King's It?

  • stryker
    8 years ago

    "It", and I was certainly not hoping for Mr King's version because we already had plenty enough trouble on our hands, seemed to have no more meaning than "time" in the Palace. We just had to pretend to believe in it to function.

    And so on the third click of the heels I...

  • rredpenn
    8 years ago
    last modified: 8 years ago

    found myself in a factory. The smell of burning rubber permeated the air, and I stifled a gag response. Covering my nose, and looking around, I saw machinery, and huge vats bubbling away, creating the vile steam perhaps responsible for the odor hanging all around this place. There was a single person, a man, operating some sort of hot press machine, at the farthest end of the room. I began towards him, but someone slipped out in front of me from below a conveyor belt.

    "Fred! What are you doing here?" I gasped, choking a bit as well. He seemed to be following me, but at least he had my best interests at heart. I think.

    "I was researching the mysterious pink flapping object we found in your toilet." Fred was always one for grinding out the research. "I think I may have an idea now."

    He pointed to the man working the press machine, which looked like some sort of industrial sized waffle iron. Every lift of the lid produced a single pink, rubbery object, which fell silently into a bin.

    As we got closer, it became clear...he was making whoopee cushions.

    "I can't stop to talk. I'm backlogged on orders, and I am understaffed," the man grunted. "I used to have two employees here, but I had to let one go." He laughed at his own joke.

    Fred grabbed me by the arm and dragged me away before more f@rt jokes slipped out.

    "Click your heels again, and this time don't think about Toto, or anything else you left behind in Kansas." (Curious indeed. The pink thing in my toilet was labelled "Toto.") "We're done with this place."

    We woke up in a different scene yet again. This time, everything was

  • rredpenn
    8 years ago

    red. We were standing in someone's shower. The bottom of the shower was red.

  • stryker
    8 years ago
    last modified: 8 years ago

    ...so strange it started to feel normal. Time had always been "loose" at the Palace, but now it turned back on itself in ways that made the previous breaks look like linear monotony by comparison.

    Fred, who was there even though he wasn't there, and was wearing pink spandex even though he had on his cowboy boots, fashioned a cart with whoopie cushions as its wheels. The elephant happily pulled it backwards with all the rest of us piled on top. Or was that underneath? The gaseous melody of the cart's progression blended in symphonic harmony with the distant calliope. Somehow a steaming bowl of mac and cheese was on my lap. It was raining like a waterfall all around, but the sun was shining on us, fractionating the droplets into a zillion rainbows. I feel like I've said that before, somehow.

    I surrender to the beauty of uncertainty.

    The drive is open, now, winding forlornly through the break in the stone wall, but I can still see them as they were; the larger-than-life wooden gatekeepers made in the images of Bozo the Clown and Emmett Kelly. From their sides hung the wooden gates, carved with an ever-shifting scene of fantasy creatures.
    When I could finally tear my eyes from Emmett's sad visage, I could see the distant garden from above, for the land dropped away liked the down-turned lips of Weary Willie. The boxwoods had been planted and pruned to spell out the name of the house, and even though they were shaggy and unkempt, I knew what the words were:

  • rredpenn
    8 years ago

    (geez, stryker, that is a lot of pressure...) :)

    Let me sleep on it.

  • chookchook2
    8 years ago

    House? Named after the great physician, who is so enigmatic, annoying and flawed, but always gets it right in the end.

  • havingfun
    8 years ago

    no Chook,

    HOUZZ and on the other side of the forlorn, weedy, abandoned drive - BACKLOT. Like the famous Dr. House or Dr. Who, it is also so enigmatic, annoying and flawed, but always gets it right in the end. We saw the back of a Yellow Caution Sign. So I
    sprang off the cart with a lightness that was both impressive and
    gratifying, not having known this amount of grace in a while, but my eyesight was no better. So Here is what we saw.


    Warning Signs · More Info


    Underneath there was another sign, one of those annoying Parking signs. You know, no parking here before 3 pm, no standing allowed after 2 pm. This does not apply on the second Thursday of any week when designers are in the Houzz. etc., etc.

    To the side was a sign with even smaller print, I had to bend over to see it.

    This is the home to all f-ash-, irrel-va-t, outmoded, or broken design.

    Along with other smaller signs beneath it, in smaller and smaller print, much like parking in DC during the daytime.

    First one said:

    a lonely forgotten tract.

    Place of abandoned design

    giant boxes of thread and twine.

    chairs and tables, even a hob

    just memories of bits and bob.

    A giant shower to wash away

    shades of marsala, tardis blue

    and every tragically overdone hue.

    The next sign said:

    All designers please enter through the main entrance.

    No bickering

    No biting

    no dickering

    over lighting.

    Bring us your new.

    Bring us your fab.

    bring it, bring it, straight from the lab.

    Don't worry, we always give credit where due.


    The Next to last sign said in even finer print:

    To all Free Houzzers and Guests:

    Please return to the main site

    Make yourself welcome, have a bite.

    Cups of tea for you three and thee

    There is still so much to do and see.

    Decorate, decorate, decorate all
    swing from the chandy, but never fall!

    run, run, run along quickly

    before the bushes become too prickly.

    And sure enough, no elephant and no cart,

    Only us Houzzers were left at the start.

    Anxiously we looked down at the sign.


    The Final Sign Read:

    Do not tarry, do not stay.
    Beware the landscape,run away!

    Never, ever look too closely,
    Beware the gaze of Bozo and Willy.
    Look not out the corner of thine eye,
    Those tears are not from the sky.
    Tis a tragic tale did put them here.

    Please, don't concern yourself dear.

    Never ever look behind Fred,

    Better words were never said

    Ureeka peeked and saw what was there.
    A word from the wise, please Beware!


    ...And now a special message from your friends at Houzz-

    Please have fun and enjoy your stay!




  • joannpb
    8 years ago
    last modified: 8 years ago

    I will never look at mac and cheese in quite the same way, again. (retiring to hide behind a stack of cookbooks.)

  • havingfun
    8 years ago

    Not at all the way it was supposed to go. All this anxiety has effected the very center of Houzz!

  • havingfun
    8 years ago

    This way you win all the polls! brew haha!

  • joannpb
    8 years ago

    With a last look over my shoulder, I hit the road, not really caring where it took me. Faintly, in the distance, I could hear the rumble of site-work equipment. Somewhere, new construction was happening..I would go that way!

    Goodbye, Palace of Clowns. I know you will haunt me forever.

  • havingfun
    8 years ago

    Well said Joann, well said.

  • stryker
    6 years ago

    Palace of Clowns, Book Two

    To go up, one must first go down. The higher the tower, the deeper the dig.

    I only wished to inhale the sweetness of lake air, but I instead filled my lungs with the scent of disturbed earth while red-nosed workers passed a single shovel around a circle. One would dig, then the next would, putting this new shovel of dirt into the previous hole. Around and around the shovel would go, with the purposeless swirl of a running toilet.

  • havingfun
    6 years ago

    Being excited at something old and much loved, becoming new and enticing again! The fully functioning and yet sassy little fox, we thank the powers that be for avatars, lept straight into the air and vanished with a twitch of her tail down the hole. you could hear her dangerous words as they glittered in the fly filled air. Hurry, we are finally free and Houzz awaits!!!!

  • havingfun
    6 years ago

    sniff, snifff.....the fox noticed the still stagnant air. she leapt out the hole smelling as she went, yet all was still, with no changes. her nose and tail twitching, she thought carefully what this must mean. suddenly a light came on in her eyes and she lept out of the hole and behind a bush. She had realized that once again in her excitement and joy she had bypassed her superiors and not paid them the proper respect. she crouched behind the bush to wait for them to return and begin the trek.

  • rredpenn
    6 years ago
    last modified: 6 years ago

    Ah yes, the toilet was indeed running and I had a date with a hunk with green eyes in a week. We had to stop it but by the time the water shutoff valve was located, the three stooges assigned to me had found the missing sewer line anyhow, the hard way, with their digging machine. Larry, the stooge who wouldn't speak or even look at me, was busy repairing the break and I was told by Moe or Curly not to flush "for a while." Of course, I suddenly needed to go. Bad.

    My savior, the plumber, who had rearranged his whole week to lift my running toilet so another crew coming with a camera that could be inserted through the toilet's drain to locate the sewer line that was now found and broken and being repaired again, came around the corner and mumbled something under his breath as he passed me. It was inaudible to the Stooges, but to me it sounded like he said, "This is why I don't work outside."

    Oy. This is gonna be a long week, I thought to myself. Then, as if on cue, it began to rain. Buckets and sheets of rain. Everyone left all at once and I was alone.

    My date with Mr Greeneyes will have to be postponed, I knew.

    Later that evening, I heard a sound out by the hole. There was a bear splashing in the rain water that had been collecting in the hole. He was wearing a pink spandex swim suit and sat lolling back in the muddy water, and bearly moved when he saw me.

    I tried to scare him away. "Shoo! Get lost! Get outta here!" I yelled at him.

    But he just looked at me blankly and said, "What? I am very happy here. I think I'll just stay a while." He smiled and closed his eyes.

    The next day, a blue tent went up. The bear was still there, basking in the water.

    The circus train was coming.

  • Fiona
    6 years ago
    last modified: 6 years ago

    I paced about, wondering if the Stooges would ever deign to show up again and actually fix the problem. I glanced up and paused, the bear had been joined by a seal in a sequined cape and a herd of be-plumed liberty horses. Is herd the correct collective noun I mused. I shook my head quickly a couple of times, 'get a grip, there are more important things to think about'.

  • havingfun
    6 years ago
    last modified: 6 years ago

    I lept out from under my little bush, shaking the water from my fur. the circus had really begun to grow! I just saw an elephant go down the hole. now we know where all those retired elephants went to.

    Finally out comes the ring master, yelling "hear ye, hear ye! Let me welcome Ms.....". I see the flash of golden in her hair, and the diamond encrusted M broach upon her chest, as I go flying down the hole to keep from getting trampled, I hear the ring master continue.... The Queen and Original Orange is the new Black!.... and down I go amidst the glittering wings of mayflies. suddenly all is black and moist and rather noisy...

  • roxsol
    6 years ago
    last modified: 6 years ago

    The circus train was here. It's calliope playing loud and strong. The clouds parted and the beautiful brass pipes shone in the sun. You knew it wasn't going to be cheap. The acrobats disembarked and swung into action. They began assembling the trapeze rigging with the speed of a herd of turtles in rubber boots.

  • rredpenn
    6 years ago
    last modified: 6 years ago

    But this was one queer trapeze. The riggings were all below ground. There was a safety net above it all with the word "Caution" woven through it in yellow plastic ribbon. It was as if the performers were going to be falling up. ??

    And just as the calliope began playing All Along the Watchtower, a familiar face, draped around the shoulders in a cape, carrying a top hat and a snorkel, someone with answers, appeared, peering over the edge of the hole at me.

    "FRED!" I was overjoyed. He had helped us before navigate these muddy waters. "You have such impeccable timing."

    "A little confused, are ya?" He laughed. "Wait until the show really starts. Then, you'll really be wondering what on earth you've gotten into. So, here..." He laughed again, and dropped something down to me over the orange safety net.

    It was some sort of magazine or program or handbook of something. As Fred disappeared (as he always did when questions were about to be asked and answered) I picked it up, shook the water and mud from the cover, and read...

  • roxsol
    6 years ago
    last modified: 6 years ago

    "ereh fo tuo yaw emos eb tsum erehT"

    And pages and pages of odd diagrams.

    Where was Fred to decipher this code....and was it to code?

    Above the pounding rhythm of the calliope a sinister sounding cackle rang out.

  • Fred S
    6 years ago

    I would say you are reading it backward ;D

  • roxsol
    6 years ago
    last modified: 6 years ago

    And saying that, with a twinkle in his eye, he tipped his top hat and **poof** he was gone again. I could hear strains of "How High's The Water Mama?" gleefully being pumped out of the calliope.

  • havingfun
    6 years ago

    finally i had clawed my way out of 2 families of elephants. not a second too soon as a pit had appeared beneath us. as the water filled it, the elephants scooped it up and blew it into another hole across the ways, being dug by the Darrell brothers, oddly they were silent. onlooking was group of Ureeka's relatives, must say those large eyes looked appropriate in this light. as i passed them they seemed to be arguing about whether to frame the pool in classic white subway or 60s pink and blue. on the far side of the cavern there were others discussing what color to paint walls. every one seemed to be gathering so i moved to the edge of the crowd


  • 111ideahound
    6 years ago
    last modified: 6 years ago

    and realized then that, "Someone like You" was being played from the calliope.

    The crowd fell silent as the music blew out and the largest clown dressed in orange and yellow stripes began singing the words to the song in a beautiful deep and sensitive voice: "I wish nothing but the best for you...." Suddenly everyone's eyes were filled with tears and a deep melancholy fell on them. Tears of lost love; of regret, of bits of old and recent memory...Even the elephant's eyes welled up for all the inhabitants had experienced loss; love; clumsy words; careless actions.... And soon the hole was filled to the brim and they were floundering once again in a pool of sadness.

    And then the music....

  • 111ideahound
    6 years ago

    stopped. Everything stopped, the rain; the wind... and then the key on my neck was yanked. I grasped it in my hand and as I did, a huge white door appeared out of nowhere.

    I walked toward it and with each step it grew larger and larger.

    I reached out and put the key in the hole and turned as everyone inched closer.

    I pushed and the door wouldn't move it was so enormous.

    Without a word everyone stepped forward and began pushing until the room inside came into full view and it was truly an astounding room!

    Carpets lay strewn everywhere; soft and plush...on floors of marble.


    It was the Palace of Clowns.

  • my2scents
    Original Author
    6 years ago

    As I tripped over a piece of carpet, I slid across the marble floor, and landed on a pile of draperies. Immediately a huge black hairy fist reached down and swept me up into the glistening chandelier.

    "Here... we go... again..." I managed breathlessly before I passed out.

  • 111ideahound
    6 years ago

    When I awoke I saw people standing all around me. Their expressions said it all... I'd had a very bad trip off the chandelier. But the hospital room I was in was sterile white and immaculate and smelled of formaldehyde.

    "What happened?" I asked.

  • havingfun
    6 years ago

    apparently some people think they can walk on chandeliers! lol

  • my2scents
    Original Author
    6 years ago
    last modified: 6 years ago

    The giant monkey owning the hairy black fist stepped from among the crowd and reached out his huge fingers to introduce himself. " 'Wright' 's the name. Justin Wright. How are ya feelin', Miss?"

    I wasn't sure if this was real or the concussion I suffered from the fall. The first button called for the nurse. The second button would give me a shot of meds. I pushed them both and drifted away while my visitors all became...

  • rredpenn
    6 years ago
    last modified: 6 years ago

    ...a distant memory of the Vicodin Haze I had experienced a year ago on this very day. I was still holding the booklet Fred had handed me before he disappeared.

    It was crusty with dried mud, but now, I could now read the first chapter. It began with an illustration and a title page:


    Hmmm.... :)

  • havingfun
    6 years ago

    suddenly we were blinded by a glaring diamond M. A supposedly perfect french accent spoke loudly. NO, NO, surely you must let Martha read that! Surely Fred meant me to save you before he stepped behind that curtain. Si vous play-hey, didn't say i could speak it!

  • 111ideahound
    6 years ago
    last modified: 6 years ago

    "Not my circus not my maps... is that what this says?"


    Hmmm. I scratched my head and wondered how to get out of this place. Just then a nurse came in and asked if I wanted to have a visitor. I said, ...

  • 111ideahound
    6 years ago
    last modified: 6 years ago

    "Yes of course I do. I want to hear the pleasant chitter chatter of so many people on Houzz. They bring me a little joy and laughter."
    The nurse made a note and said, "I'll get online and look up Houzz."
    "It's Houzz. Not house," I explained.

  • havingfun
    6 years ago

    she returned with a chimney dilemma. i tried to explain that i don't work on no chimneys.

  • 111ideahound
    6 years ago
    Then she brought Havingfun into the room. 'Having' came with a bagful of pillows and started fixing my bed with a beautiful throw and with pillows to match!
    Soon another visitor came, it was...
  • havingfun
    6 years ago

    we snuggle down and looked for a new dilemma, one worthy of our group efforts. more an more are coming in, including donkeys and foxes, a beautiful white horse, a new grandmother, a red hand. and someone not seen in so long, i do not even know them? my 2 scents?.....

  • havingfun
    6 years ago

    that big meaty fist reaches in and starts to churn! 3 of us get dumped into unrelated dilemmas! how did we get here?