How to Decorate for a Halloween Haunted House

Haunted houses are surprisingly easy to put together.

If you are having a Halloween party and want to turn your home into a haunted house for just one evening, look for inexpensive decorations in thrift or Halloween specialty stores. Even the cheapest materials create plenty of frights when combined with spooky lighting and scary sounds. Just a few simple decorating techniques achieve a very "spirited" Halloween haunted house that is sure to impress your guests.

Things You'll Need

• Old white sheets
• Thrift-store curtains
• Clothing
• Newspaper
• Halloween mask
• Fake headstones
• Fake cobwebs
• Small plastic spiders
• Black lightbulb
• Fake blood
• Fog machine
• Spooky sounds CD

Instructions

1. Remove any particularly cheerful decor you normally have on display from the areas in the house that guests will encounter. Leave up anything antique or old-fashioned, such as framed portraits of ancestors or porcelain dolls.

2. Place "dirty" sheets over all the furniture. Stain white sheets in a bathtub by adding tea bags to it until the water turns a fairly dark brown. Or, rub the sheets over any especially dusty areas in your home. Squirt fake blood all over the sheets and allow to dry.

3. Cover all windows and any large blank wall spaces with thrift-store curtains. The curtains should be thick to block out all light and appear old. Lace patterns and solid colors are particularly effective. If the curtains are light in color, squirt some fake blood across them.

4. Stuff pieces of clothing like pants and long-sleeved shirts with crumpled-up newspaper. Put them together to create a "body" on a chair or couch and carefully prop a scary Halloween mask over the top for the head.

5. Place fake headstones on the floor in clusters over open areas. Behind the headstones, set up a fog machine that will cover the floor with creepy-looking mist.

6. Cover all corners of the house, as well as light fixtures and wall decor, with fake cobwebs. Stretch the cobwebs with your hands to create a webby look and place small plastic spiders in them.

7. Replace the room's lightbulbs with black lightbulbs and set up flickering candlelight decorations on tables and shelves.

8. Play a CD of spooky sounds when it's show time.

References

• Halloween Howl: How to Decorate a Halloween Haunted House
• Caryn: Haunted House Ideas