It’s that spooky time of year again!

Tips for decorating your house this Halloween, inside and out

Halloween is just around the corner and people are already getting in the spirit by putting out their decorations.

If you’re still wondering how to decorate your house for this spooky holiday, there are as many choices as there are costumed kids at your door.

Chris Patterson, of Spirit Halloween, went over several of the  possibilities from decorating your porch right through to your kitchen.

Those outside decorations can be as simple as a spider crawling to more intricate things moving around the lawn. Patterson said he’s a fan of the classic old spider web.

“For outside, you can go with anything as simple as having some spider webs in your trees and bushes, a spider or two hanging out with some lights just to glow under them,” Patterson said. “And then you can jump to having full-blown animatronics, such as clowns that would move around or people on electric chairs.”

Halloween brings out some real enthusiasts, the ones that go out of their way to make sure that their house is extra spooky. They may even become part of it themselves, Patterson said.

“If people are willing to be outside, and they truly love Halloween, there’s always the old ‘dress up yourself’ (routine),” Patterson said. “Be outside pretending to be a statue or being in a grave, and popping up to greet the kids and scaring them a bit.”

For people interested in the “must-have” item for this year, it is not surprisingly zombie-related. Patterson said they had a zombie girl sitting on a swing, but it was sold out on the first day, he said.

Animatronics, meanwhile, can range from $40 to $300; Patterson said it just depends on how big you want to go.

For those who want to decorate the inside of their house, there are a few things that can make a living room spooky, or a kitchen look like it’s a bloody mess.

“I know for your kitchen, you can decorate it to look like the scene of a crime, have a cloth over the kitchen table with fake blood, have fake disgusting food like it’s rotting,” Patterson said. “If you want to decorate your living room or a window, you can have a red light at the bottom of the window so it lights up. Even just having a skeleton hanging somewhere can make the room completely different.”

One last suggestion that Patterson revealed was to add some LED lights around your decorations.

“Because however they decorate, inside or out, lights can make the world of a difference. If you could have a skeleton there, or a spider and its web, it’s just sitting there … but then you add lights to it, and the effect that it has is amplified,” Patterson said.

Halloween is Thursday, Oct. 31.

About this article

By: Erin Cassidy
Copy editor: Erika Marucci
Posted: Oct 22 2013 11:09 am
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Filed under: Arts & Life
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