Transform your porch into a spooktacular Halloween (visual) treat

Giant arachnids and their webs — the stretchy, stringy, definitely fake kind — top the list of favorite porch decor in Utah. But if you’d rather do something less icky, there are plenty of other options. From classic pumpkins to creepy coffins, you can turn your porch into a mini haunted house, or just keep it friendly for the kids.

Set the scene

For some, Halloween is about bringing the boo factor with skulking skeletons, ghosts, witches, spiders and werewolves. Pick a scary creature to lurk in the corner or hover near the door, then substitute your white porch light with a colored bulb for a ghoulish ambiance. 

Sounds go a long way in creating a creepy atmosphere, too. Play some haunting music as guests walk up to a fog machine that billows plumes across your steps.

Old school charms

Even without an orange welcome mat to say it outright, trick-or-treaters will understand the sentiment: Hello, pumpkins! The gourd comes in all shapes, sizes and colors, so you can use them all over the place. Stack ‘em, carve or paint ‘em, pile ‘em on your steps, gather various shapes in a metal bucket or use one to make a scarecrow head. Really, you can’t go wrong with pumpkins.

From the porch rafters, hang some ghosts, witch hats or bats from invisible thread so they sway gently in the breeze. Add some orange or purple string lights for mood lighting. Once Halloween is over, take down the spooky icons and add some flowers and corn stalks for decor to last through November.

Banner year

You don’t need to heavily invest in a theme to create a spooktacular doorstep, just add a garland. They’re easy to make and look festive hung around the front door frame or windows, between pillars or along a porch railing. You just need a sewing machine or a hot glue gun.

• Attach tiny pumpkins to a vine with floral wire or glue 

• Cut triangles out of patterned fabric or cardstock and attach to a heavy string; add images, such as bats, or letters to spell a word

• Make cutouts of ghosts or pumpkins with scissors or a Cricut machine. Stitch the characters together in one long string.

Create several banners in Halloween hues and layer them for a more colorful display.

Flower power

One of the easiest ways to dress up your porch for the fall holidays is with potted flowers. Choose seasonal blooms, such as African daisies and garden mums, and place them in wooden crates or galvanized buckets — or both. Put them down your steps, around the door and next to your porch table and chairs. 

Make your own interesting flower container with an artificial pumpkin. Simply cut off its top and put the flower pot inside. You can do this with a real pumpkin, but you’ll need to clean it out first, which lowers the easy factor.

Sit a spell

The gray, black and white colors popular in the farmhouse aesthetic works well for a Halloween front porch. Just make it a bit more rustic. Stack a crate, hay bale and milk pail in the corner. Write a welcome or warning message on a chalkboard, or put up a framed silhouette of a black cat or crow. Add white pumpkins trimmed with black plaid ribbon and you’re done. Farmhouse chic.

Haunted porch

Welcome trick-or-treaters with a spooky entrance. Cut several yards of cheesecloth into wide strips. Droop them from your porch overhang, overlapping some to add dimension. Cut a few holes to create a more tattered look. Complete the eerie look with a few black lanterns and flameless candles.

Prize door

If you don’t have much of a porch, go all out decorating your front door — just be sure you can still open it.

• Attach spider webs to the corner with a dangling plastic spider

• Cut giant teeth out of white paper — emphasis on the incisors — and arrange them at the top and bottom of the door to look like an open mouth, ready to chomp

• Crisscross white crepe paper or gauze across it so it resembles a wrapped mummy, with two huge eyes looking out

• Make a ghost by hanging a white sheet to cover most of the door, with striped stockings and shoes poking out at the bottom — and two googly eyes, of course

• Arrange green metallic paper to look like goo seeping out at the base, then apply strips of caution tape across the door

• Cut up cardboard boxes into 6-inch strips, write “KEEP OUT” on one, then apply to door (blank side up) so it looks boarded up

Embrace the Halloween spirit with finds from KSL Classifieds. You can even find the perfect bowl for your candy. This is the one time of year that having the creepiest house is a good thing. But you probably should still mow your overgrown lawn.