Halloween
How to create a beautifully haunted house. Five senses, five darkly delicious looks, and decorations that deserve to live beyond October.
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Halloween has a bit of a plastic problem.
Inflatable ghosts, synthetic cobwebs, battery-powered skeletons with questionable dance moves. You know the sort.
And while there's absolutely a place for a ridiculous amount of Halloween fun, there's another way to create something wonderfully unsettling.
A little darker. A little more considered. And considerably less likely to end up in landfill on 1 November.
The secret isn't really in the decorations.
It's in the atmosphere.
Choose your haunting
Five looks, from the front door to the drinks table. Start wherever you like.
Think about the best haunted houses in films. You rarely remember the decorations. You remember the long corridor. The flicker of a light. The sound of something in the next room.
Or the horrible feeling that you're not quite alone.
That's good set design. And the same principles work in our homes.
Before buying a single pumpkin, decide what sort of haunting you're after.
A crumbling country house? A secret library filled with peculiar objects? An elegant Victorian townhouse whose previous occupants may never have entirely moved out?
The most convincing interiors tell one story. A few carefully chosen details will create much more atmosphere than a room full of unrelated Halloween paraphernalia.
And here's the good news: your house probably has rather more to work with than you think. An old mirror. A slightly gloomy corner. A fireplace. A staircase. That one door that never seems to close properly.
All excellent starting points.
01 · Sight
If you're going to do one thing for Halloween, get the lighting right.
Darkness on its own isn't terribly interesting. What makes it atmospheric is the contrast between light and shadow. A lantern at the end of a path. A low lamp throwing an unexpected shape across the wall. A few candles reflected in an old mirror.
You want people to notice just enough to wonder what they haven't seen.
Try turning off the overhead lights and using several smaller sources instead. Place them at different heights, concentrating on corners, doorways and the things you actually want people to notice. Flickering LED candles work particularly well inside lanterns, especially near fabrics, dried foliage or on a doorstep.
And don't underestimate the power of doing absolutely nothing to a dark corner. Not everything needs illuminating.
Worth keeping: substantial lanterns, rechargeable lamps, warm-toned LED candles, dimmers and beautiful candlesticks.
02 · Touch
Halloween is traditionally quite enthusiastic about fake cobwebs. But texture can do something far more interesting.
Imagine a heavy velvet curtain against rough old timber. Cold stone beside polished brass. Crinkled parchment, worn leather, weathered branches and a glass vessel with something peculiar inside. It's the contrast that creates interest.
A piece of dark linen thrown across a table can instantly change the room. Add tarnished silver, an antique-looking object or a cluster of strangely shaped gourds, and you have the beginnings of something rather mysterious.
You don't need to turn your sitting room into a dungeon. And please don't ruin perfectly good furniture in the process.
Worth keeping: velvet cushions, linen tablecloths, vintage trays, aged brass, interesting ceramics and objects found second-hand.
03 · Smell
Scent is probably the most overlooked part of decorating a room, and one of the easiest ways to change how it feels. For autumn, think cedarwood, rosemary, orange peel, cinnamon, clove and woodsmoke.
A seasonal simmer pot is a lovely alternative to filling the house with artificial fragrance. Add orange peel, a cinnamon stick, a few cloves and a sprig of rosemary to a pan of water. Warm it gently and let the scent travel through the house. Never leave it unattended, and keep it somewhere pets and children can't reach.
Or use a favourite scented candle in a reusable vessel, placed safely away from anything flammable. The idea isn't to make the house smell like a novelty pumpkin latte. Just to give it a slightly different identity for the evening.
04 · Sound
The trouble with traditional Halloween sound effects is that they're usually far too obvious. A screaming witch every 30 seconds rather gives the game away.
Something subtler is much more effective. A low instrumental soundtrack. A distant bell. Footsteps. An old record with a little surface noise. Music that feels as though it belongs in a film where nobody should really be going into the basement.
Sound can connect rooms, too. Keep the entrance quiet, let music drift out from another space, and allow guests to follow it. A discreet speaker and a carefully chosen playlist will do nicely.
And sometimes, the most atmospheric sound is silence. Particularly if everyone is expecting something to happen.
05 · Taste
If you're entertaining, let the food join in. Dark grapes, fresh figs, blackberries, dark chocolate, pomegranate, roasted nuts and something spiced, served on old silver, dark ceramics or a beautiful wooden board.
Keep the presentation simple. It's much more effective to serve something delicious in a beautiful vessel than to persuade everyone to eat a biscuit shaped like a severed finger. Although I appreciate that some people will disagree.
For decanters and glassware, see the poison bar.
Now for the enjoyable part. Rather than decorating every room in exactly the same way, choose a direction. These five looks create very different atmospheres, but they share one principle: most of the pieces should be worth owning for the rest of the year.
Look 01
Make an entrance.
The best Halloween houses have a sense of theatre before you've even reached the front door. Frame the doorway, put lanterns on the steps at different heights and add one unexpected detail.
Keep the palette restrained and let scale do the work. One beautifully arranged group by the door beats twenty little decorations scattered everywhere.
Lanterns, wreaths and the art of making an entrance.
Shop the lookLook 02 · Inside the haunted house
For the room you walk through first.
The hallway sets the tone before anyone has taken their coat off. Tall black tapers at different heights, berried branches in a dark vase, a black pumpkin and one skull, positioned as though it has always been there.
It takes ten minutes to set up, and most of it works perfectly well for a November dinner party.
Tapers, black pumpkins and one good skull.
Shop the hallwayLook 03 · Inside the haunted house
For the room with secrets.
Think of a private library after dark. Books stacked a little too high, aged brass, a heavy chest and a rather beautiful light that doesn't illuminate quite enough.
Nothing too theatrical. Just enough to make visitors wonder what you've been reading.
A raven lamp, a spell book and portraits that watch back.
Shop the drawing roomLook 04
For the curious, and the slightly wicked.
Every good house should have a corner that makes you wonder what's inside. A beetle under glass, a crystal ball, a bird skull on a locked box.
Think curiosity rather than horror. Put it somewhere people will notice. Or, better still, somewhere they might not.
Peculiar finds and things with a story to tell.
Shop the lookLook 05
Something to drink, if you dare.
Every good mystery has a decanter in it, ideally one shaped like a skull. Dark glass bottles, a brass tray and beaker wine glasses that look as though they've escaped from a Victorian laboratory.
It's theatre in a glass, without anything radioactive-looking. And when the guests have gone, it's simply a lovely bar.
Beaker glasses, poison bottles and a gold skull.
Shop the lookThe nicest thing about this approach is that very little needs to be thrown away. A good lantern is useful all winter. Velvet and linen work for entertaining. Interesting glassware, antique objects and candlesticks can live happily on a shelf throughout the year.
Branches can be composted. Uncarved pumpkins can be cooked, if they're edible varieties, and fresh seasonal foliage is often more beautiful than anything made from plastic.
Borrow something. Reuse what you already own. Hunt through charity shops and antique markets. Invest in the things you genuinely love. And when Halloween is over, pack away the small number of things that really are Halloween-specific. The rest should still look wonderful.
Why it works
The best haunted houses are the ones that don't give everything away.
You don't need to transform every room in your house. Pick one space: a hallway, a dining table, a doorstep or the corner where everyone gathers. Give it a story.
Change the lighting. Introduce a few interesting textures. Add a little sound and scent. Then leave something to the imagination.
Happy haunting.
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Interiors, gardens, useful ideas and things I'd genuinely want at home. The Edit lands every other Thursday.
Start with lighting, real pumpkins and branches from the garden, then add a few pieces you'd happily keep all year: lanterns, candlesticks, velvet, old glass and brass. Atmosphere does more than any number of novelty props.
Lanterns, black candlesticks, tapers, cloches, apothecary bottles, brass trays and dark glassware all work through winter. Put away the witch hats and skulls on 1 November and the rest carries on.
Frame the door rather than covering it. A dark wreath, lanterns at different heights on the steps, a broom and one unexpected detail, such as a witch hat or a crow, look far better than lots of small decorations.
Everything is on Amazon UK, and most pieces offer Prime delivery. Check the delivery date on each listing before you order, especially in the last week of October.