Designer Approved Halloween Decor
Halloween is around the corner and decorations are going up! As a spooky holiday, there are A LOT of ways decorating for this can go wrong, so we want to steer you towards some designer approved Halloween decor. It can still be fun and moody while looking classy and refined to fit your home’s aesthetic. Let’s explore how you can be the prettiest house on the block AND still bring the spook factor.
Refined Halloween Decor Ideas
The best thing about Halloween is that the base of it is still Autumn, so we love to get our Fall decor going strong and then layer on some spooky decor. After Halloween is over, you still have a cozy autumnal scene that can stick around until it is time for Christmas. We’ve thrown together some guidelines to help you navigate through all the halloween ephemera out there and keep it refined:
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- Stay away from lots of plastic
- Limit or nix large lawn creatures & blow-ups altogether
- Start with lots of pumpkins, gourds, and mums
- Stick with traditional fall colors and lose the neons
- Use black accents – even without a raven, spider, bat, or cat motif, this translates into a spooky color
- Add warm lighting in the vein of candles or orange-colored bulbs
- Bare branches, moss, and leaves from your yard can go a long way!
- Focus more on the path to your doorway than the whole lawn or whole yard
- Inside, focus on your entryway, and your main living area
- For instant spook, drape faux spiderwebs or black cheesecloth over your regularly-scheduled decor. These are big impact for so little effort!
Front Entry
Base Fall Decor
So let’s approach your front door decor in layers, and you can find your sweet spot as we go! First up, fill out your entryway with all those beautiful pumpkins, gourds, mums, and leafy decor. Use candles and lanterns to fill in some nooks and crannies and bring the warmth of the color palette to life.
Add Spooky Touches
Second layer: add some spooky touches with Halloween-specific decor that focuses on motifs instead of the blood & gore route. Think bats, spiders, ghosts, spider webs, ravens, witch hats and brooms, skeletons, jack-o-lanterns, and black cats. Pick a few of those and repeat the elements, i.e. add a whole family of bats along the wall, or hang a collection of witch hats like you see below. Who doesn’t love a little family of mini ghosts or a branch of ravens?
Go Full Halloween
Final layer, if you dare! Take it all up a notch by adding more! Whats really successful in these spaces is the fullness of them. Fill in all the crevices, don’t leave any bare space on the walk up to the house. Make sure lanterns, twinkle lights, and jack-o-lanterns are regularly spaced throughout the walk. Add some big elements like the twisted branch arch below or the draped rope over the stairs. Mix in some dried or faux branches, florals, and leaves, but make sure to save some leaves to scatter across the entrance on Halloween night! Cover your bushes and other garden plants with faux spiderwebs. Vary the height of your elements for a fuller look! Notice the items on pedestals, the stacked pumpkins, the use of planters to place some elements higher than others.
Very full, very eye catching, and still very chic, yes?
Interior
Add the Spook Factor
Let’s take these ideas inside, shall we? First, get your Fall decor filled out in your entryway and into your main living space. See some of our tips for doing that in our post about updating for Fall here!
Next, add your spooky touches. Apply the same advice as on the exterior, but in more specific locations where you can create a scene. Think surfaces first– entryway table, media credenza, mantle, dining table, or bookshelves. Places that are prone to decor and arranging items already. If surfaces are few, find a main wall to place a flock of ravens (which is actually called a murder), or an installation of hanging candles. Or if you aren’t in to big seasonal swaps of decor, try the easiest thing of all: add some white spiderwebs or black gauze/cheesecloth over your regular decor to spookify it.
Pick Your Poison
We’ve collected some pieces we are loving to get that refined halloween look! If you’re looking for more, don’t worry we have a whole list of items to pull your space together– whether your thing is friendly ghosts, macabre black and skeletons, or simple candlelight and bare branches.
Find our favorite halloween decor pieces and more below!
Get out there and start adding some spookiness to your home!
Thanks for tuning in,
