Easy Ways to Increase the Spooky at Your Home
If you’re like our cleaning experts at Merry Maids®, Halloween is a holiday you look forward to every year. Who wouldn’t love a holiday where you can literally pretend to be someone or something else for an entire day? To gear up for the frightful festivities, you probably have your scary movies picked out (adult and family-friendly options) and your costume ready to go. But what about your home? Are you planning to go trick-or-treating with your family and leave your home looking exactly the same? In good conscience, we can’t let that happen!
Check out our easy ways to incorporate more spooktasticness into your home and Halloween decorations.
Make It an (Addams) Family Affair
Elevating the spooky at your home isn’t a one-person show. It requires the entire family to get in on the fun! Not only does including everyone make creating an eerie atmosphere easier, but it also helps bring new Halloween scene ideas to the table. After all, you don’t want to do what your neighbors down the street are doing. Your DIY haunted house idea should be unique and tailored to your family.
A few ways to get started include:
Choosing a specific theme first, like ghosts and ghouls or witches and warlocks
Planning early, so you’re not rushing
Listening to everyone’s ideas and giving them equal attention
Coming to a family consensus on how to make your home spooky
Delegating Halloween decoration duties
Remember, this is supposed to be fun and family-focused. If, at any point, the sense of enjoyment is lost, talk to the rest of the family and reevaluate your plan.
Try Dastardly DIYing
You could buy the most gruesome and haunting Halloween decorations at any store, but do you really want décor that’s been done before?
Try your hand at some DIY haunted house ideas that include:
A black tarp as makeshift walls to make the space as dark and ominous as possible
Multiple rolls of caution tape around your front porch or on the front door
Trails of fake blood (made at home with 2 cups of clear corn syrup, 4 tablespoons of water, 4 tablespoons of red food dye, and 4 tablespoons of cornstarch)
Floating candles in your entryway or porch for a magical effect
Play with Ghostly Lighting
Lighting has the power to set a scene and even affect your mood, so incorporating it into your DIY haunted house idea, and other Halloween decorations can make a huge impact on the spookiness you’re going for. Play around with backlighting around your home. We suggest using pale white, dark purple, dark blue, dark green, or dark red lighting for an eerie effect that will make trick-or-treaters hesitate (in a good way) before walking up to your home.
Use Your Entire Property
Many people only opt to use the front of their home as the focal point of their spooky Halloween scene. However, you may be shortchanging your home with decorations by not incorporating your entire property. Remember when we said to play with lighting? You can use that creepy backlighting or even ghostly sounds (we’ll get into that next) in the backyard to make passersby wonder what in the world is going on around the rest of your home. The mystery will enhance the unnerving feelings you’re trying to evoke.
Incorporate Sound Using Eerie Effects
Ghosts moaning, slow footsteps, doors creaking, unexpected screams, or disembodied voices whispering in the night can set trick-or-treaters’ hairs on end. These ambient sounds are an easy and perfect way to get the neighborhood talking. Now, with that said, we love a good Halloween music playlist at the end of the night to help offset some of the creepiness as trick-or-treating is winding down.
Set the Scene with a Fog Machine
You know, in all those scary movies where the protagonist has to walk through a dark forest or a cemetery at night—and conveniently—there’s a heavy fog? Not only does the fog add a ghostly impression, but it keeps you guessing as to what could be under the fog waiting to jump out to grab you. Investing in a fog machine could be just what your property needs for a DIY haunted house or exterior Halloween decorations. It may be the only thing your home requires to be that house on All Hallows’ Eve (insert maniacal laughter).
You Focus on the Spooky. We’ll Knock Out the Cleaning!
While you’re getting your home ready for the most frightening night of the year, we’ll be tackling the inside, making it shine like new. We can help you prepare for a festive Halloween party with your closest friends with organizational, detailed cleaning, green cleaning, and maid service. Trust your local Merry Maids team to make your Halloween night one to remember.
Call (888) 490-4227 for more information and request a free estimate now!
