Create a Haunting New Home

Your new home and its long list of freedoms (and responsibilities) may also come with your first opportunity to get serious about holiday decorating. You no longer have to worry about getting a landlord’s permission to puncture the walls and you are no longer limited by indoor and mini-balcony embellishments. You can be as creative and outlandish as you wish, and your first chance to show off your new house’s fall decorations is Halloween. So step beyond wreaths, small pumpkins and a single bucket of candy for trick-or-treaters and embrace the creepy canvases that your new yard and porch have to offer.

Yard

Your yard can quickly (and cheaply) be transformed into a scary graveyard sure to spook all of your costumed visitors. To start, refrain from mowing for three to four weeks before Halloween. The slightly overgrown grass will heighten the reality of your ominous cemetery. The first items to gather are tombstones. You can make these with cardboard or Styrofoam (or wood, if you’re feeling handy), or you can buy plastic ones for as low as $10 from any Halloween or party store. The size of your yard will determine how many you should set up, but be sure to make or buy a variety of sizes and shapes to make the graveyard more realistic. For added realism, space the tombstones appropriately (about seven feet apart) and put small mounds of dirt in front of each one. Also, tilt and skew the positions of some and drape all of them with leaves, vines or moss. You may want to add a Grim Reaper, a ghost or a mummy or, leave a wheelbarrow full of dirt and plastic bones for additional scream-ability.

 For a more family-friendly yard, use stakes and corn stalks to create a fall farm atmosphere and build a scarecrow (you just need old clothes, a burlap sack, straw and a stake). You can use a pumpkin – plain or carved – for the scarecrow’s head.

Porch

The first element of any Halloween porch is a pumpkin and/or jack-o-lantern. Fresh pumpkins are usually available at select farms, schools and churches. If you want a more permanent (and less smelly) carved creation, consider a hard-shell gourd. After being carved and dried, these gourds can be stored and used every year. Next to your pumpkin or gourd, consider creating a steamy cauldron with dry ice. Then use string, strobe and colored flood lights to add to the spooky mood. Blue lights work best if you’re also building a graveyard, but for an alien or swamp theme, use green light.  To emphasize witches, vampires or devils, a red light works best. To cap off the details on the porch and make walking to your door truly daunting, hang bats (which can be cheaply made or bought), skeletons, chains and/or crime scene tape all over. Use available sprays or stretchable cobwebs to put spider webs next to windows and walkways.

If you’re creating a less scary and more kid-appropriate Halloween yard, stay away from the dark lights and freaky creatures and stick to lots of bats (let the kids help you make paper ones) and carved pumpkins.

Door

You may also want to haunt your door with decorations. Keep it festive and friendly with an autumn wreath. Or, scare all your visitors with skulls around your doorframe or a cobweb overhang. You can also use store-bought supplies to make the door a portal into a castle, dungeon or haunted house.