Many people don't have the luxury or desire to live in a
house, and reside in an apartment instead. Decorating an
apartment, particularly a small one, does limit how much
you can do, but that doesn't mean that you can't do
a great job decorating for Halloween. Even if you don't
think you will receive any trick or treaters, decorate
for friends, family but mostly for yourself.
Last year we helped a good
friend of ours decorate her small one bedroom apartment
and it turned out great. She really loved getting back
into the Halloween spirit and even hosted a small
Halloween party for a few close friends.
First you will want to
create a basic plan of how you want to decorate and what types
of Halloween decorations you will need. This plan will
be based on available space and your budget. Look around
the main room of your apartment and envision what you
would like to do, then write it down on paper, including
a simple diagram (Click here to see a large version of
our diagram).
Next, you will want to clear
as much space as possible. Pack all non-essentials in
the main room into boxes and either place them in storage or in the
bedroom.
If it is a single room apartment and you have
no access to a storage area, you can see if someone in
your family or a friend will let you temporarily store
your things in their attic or garage. You may need to
move some furniture around or even into the
bedroom if necessary.
The Front Door
The outside of the door to your apartment should only be
decorated with inexpensive decorations, this way if
some hoodlum or prankster decides to take them, you aren't out
much money. There are several different styles of
Halloween door covers that you easily tape to the
face of the door and cost
as little as a few dollars.
On the inside of the door,
you can hang a festive Halloween wreath using a screw-in
cup hook. There are many different styles available to
purchase or you can make your own with supplies from a
craft store. If you aren't allowed to make holes in
things, you can use those adhesive hooks that come off
easily, made by 3M.
You can also buy a spooky
door topper. These usually have streamers hanging down
and attach to the top of the door frame.
A Halloween
Centerpiece
A Halloween tree in the corner or a small one as a
tabletop decoration looks great as a visual
centerpiece. There are all sorts of things that can
be used as decorations. Click here to read about different
types of Halloween Trees.
Putting together a small Halloween
town on a coffee table, kitchen table or bar using
Lemax Spooky Town buildings and accoutrements is
another way to make a great centerpiece.
Ceiling and Walls
Start by adding cob webs to the corners of the ceiling and
then suspend some rubber
bats
hanging from the ceiling using fishing line and
thumb tacks.
A big Halloween banner on the wall makes a
statement. A Halloween style clock can be bought for
as little as ten dollars. You can hang it on the wall or
if it's a round clock, use a stand up plate holder to
display it.
Jack O' Lanterns
Just because you don't have a front porch doesn't
meant that you can't have a few carved pumpkins
placed through-out your apartment. The kitchen
table, counter and coffee table are all great places to
display your Jack O' Lanterns. Check out
Pumpkin Carving 101 for all sorts of great
suggestions and tips. If you don't have the
time to actually carve real pumpkins, you can always buy
the pre-carved artificial Jack O' Lanterns. Most
come with a plug in light so you can just plug it in and
it's all set!
Build a Small Indoor
Graveyard
Yes, its actually possible to build a graveyard in a
small space as a Halloween display. You can erect it in a corner or along a portion of a wall.
The "Cemetery
Fence Halloween Prop" is a plastic
cemetery fence that comes packaged in two pieces.
Assembled, the section measures about three feet long
by thirty inches high. Sections snap together easily, so
that you can make a fence just about any
size just by adding more sections. We made a
six foot wide by three foot deep cemetery using four
sets. Each set retails for around
$19.95.
Since most apartments have
white walls, we tacked up black felt fabric the full
width of the cemetery and twice the height of the fence to
act as a backdrop on the wall. We also cut out a
large circle from a piece of yellow felt and tacked it
over one side of the black felt at the top to look like
a full moon.
Once the fence is
assembled and in position, we spread Spanish Moss over
the floor to make a bed inside the fence. If this is
going to be on carpet, lay down a plastic drop cloth to
prevent a mess. Add a few
tombstones, fake spiders, a skull, fake crow or
raven, a Jack O' Lantern and a creepy sign that
reads "Cemetery" or "Graveyard", and you have a really cool
display.
Spooky Lighting
Changing out your light bulbs to a creepy color like
blue or green can instantly change the tone
of a room from normal to spooky.
We
replaced the regular bulbs in lamps with colored fluorescent FEIT Party Light bulbs (twist
type). We think it looks best to only have one color in
a single room. These bulbs are available in several colors and can be purchased at your local
hardware store.
Strings of
orange and/or purple colored mini-lights are a great
way to add festive lighting. You can hang mini-lights around your
window frames, curtain rods, door frames, across the
ceiling, on a balcony, etc. Always think
safety when using
holiday lighting or any other electrical
decorations.
Have a lot of fun and a
Happy Halloween!
