A haunted house has rickety, clap board siding, broken shutters or a crooked stairway.
Your home however may not! Therefore, recreating these eerie characteristics could be your next Halloween home haunt project.
Get creative and make your haunting facade as rustic or decorative as you choose. I apologize for not having pics for this prop, I've used it twice so far and both times it was neglected at picture time.
How to Make your Backdrop...
You need to decide how you want your home haunt to appear to Trick or Treaters and their 'followers'. If you have cemetary props paint your design to reflect a spooky masoleum, crematorium or butcher shop. A haunted house with the similar look and feel of the one in Psycho by painting slat walls, busted shutters and windows with crazy old ladies in them. Paint a butcher shop, funhouse, forest or dungeon for your home haunt theme then paint up some rocks and stones of various sizes, bricks, skulls, bones or even logs.
Supplies needed...
- Measuring tape
- Scissors
- Exterior water based paint. Black and white for stone or brickwork is good.
- Paint brushes
- Unprimed canvas cut off a large roll (leftover from previous projects). You could use painters drop clothes which are large, affordable and durable. Be sure to get ones that are made of canvas or heavy cotton even rubber backed drop clothes will work as long it has a paintable surface.
Directions...
- Measure the area of your home haunt facade albeit the shed, garage or frontage of your home you want disquised. Now measure again ;) Lay out your material as flat as possible then measure out those same co-ordinates onto your fabric. Now measure again ;) Use the scissors but do not cut out openings for the doors and windows unless you need to or want to.
With our home haunt disquise we cut out the living room window for the reasons of sanity but left the front door area alone. The doors were measured separatly and the measurements drawn onto the fabric as a guide. It was cut so the door could open and close but the 'hinge' side remained attached uncut. This may not work with your home so check first!
- Once you've determined the style it's just a matter of painting the design onto the surface. If you want it extra durable and long lasting, prime both sides of the fabric first (I didn't do this and ours has lasted for quite a few seasons).
When choosing either rolls of canvas
or drop clothes, consider the size and price. A roll of canvas may be only 5'2" meaning to cover height, you'd be rolling out the whole roll for barely two strips 8' long. You will most likely have a seam somewhere within the design so remember to overlap and paint accordingly. Whereas drop clothes are more squared off and far more economical!
...the Psycho Circus has arrived to send fear into kids of all ages, even the grown-ups! 
The psycho clown in the wheelbarrow was put together rather quickly in lieu of a missing Scare-Actor, temporarily missing that is ;) Inside of the clown is a coat hanger with fishing line attached to the hook and a garbage overtop acting like a dry cleaning bag. It was then stuffed, tied and clothed with buttons done right up to the neck so the hanger wouldn't slip out. I cut a small hole in the top of the mask and slid the fishing line thru it and tied it to the Cedar branch above to hold up the body. With some stuffed pants, boots and accessories he turned out pretty good for last minute scare. The masks were an awesome purchase I made online quite a few years ago. At that time I was able to buy five high quality rubber masks for $20US on Ebay, $4 bucks each! The clown in the wheelbarrow is a full head mask that and even comes down the neck and over the shoulders. It's perfectly frightful to come face to face with and equally so to wear, if you are not at all claustrophobic!
