Not Quite Fifty Shades of Gray...Well, Two Actually

Got the primary colors laid in on the walls- two shades of gray, which gives them a subtle but distinct difference between them. The next step will be to use a sponge and add black and white paint to give it a stone look. The first pic has a higher contrast to bring out the difference in the colors, the second photo is more of a normal view.

Monster Mud and Monster Heat

Got a bit warm here today- high 80s and a bright toasty-thing in the sky. Still, a good day for cutting and texturing foam. First up was the foam knife and heat gun- I cut the foam boards into blocks, then used the heat gun to add details:

After that was done, I applied Monster Mud to all the panels- right now they're beige, but we'll be painted and dry brushing and stippling and washing them to create more of a stone effect.

Once the outer wall textures are finished, the next step will be to complete the interior- either paint or Scene Setters stone wall pattern. Once that's done, we'll assemble the structure and build a roof, complete the details for the exterior, and begin work on the doors, broken wall, and rear wall; this looks into the garage, so it's the last part to complete before we tackle the interior project.

Lots to do still, but the hardest parts are behind us now.

The Crypt Comes To Life

Got the walls to the crypt entrance built and did a quick test-fit. Next step will be to permanently fasten them, cover the insides (canvas and scene setters), then start texturing the outside. Final steps will involve building a roof and adding architectural details like moldings, trim, etc.

Math Foils Me Again

Went to the building supply store this morning, eager to buy the foam board and 1x2"s to build my crypt entrance. They didn't have 4x8' board, but they offered a discount on 2x4' boards, so I bought (what I thought was) enough for both projects...

I had the schematic with me, and it spelled out how many boards I needed for the two projects. Since I was getting 2x4 instead of 4x8, and since 2x2=4 and 4x2=8, I reasoned that I needed twice as many of the smaller boards as I had listed in the larger sizes. Having completed my purchases, I returned home and commenced laying out my wall.

Aaaaannnddd....it all went "pear-shaped." If you saw this coming- congrats! Turns out, through some bizarre property of math, that you need four 2x4' boards to equal one 4x8' board. In one fell swoop, I went from more than enough for both projects to a bit more than enough for one project.

Meanwhile, the adhesive wasn't bonding to the foam properly, which meant my boards didn't stick to the wooden frames. The wood glue didn't adhere to the wood, so the frames fell apart. And it was hot and sunny, so I got cooked and burned.

For a day's worth of work, all I have to show are two boards glued to two pieces of wood, various other pieces of wood cut to length, and sunburn.

This is why I started in June...

Happy Walpurgisnacht!

That's right, it's Walpurgisnacht- that Central/Northern European festival where witches are said to dance around bonfires in celebration of Spring. Six more months to Halloween- getting ready yet? Lots to do before game day...

Plans and Schemes (Schematics, anyway)

Finalized our builds for this year's haunt, now we can start acquiring the materials and building a little at a time. The project list looks like:

• Hard-wiring all the LEDs for the candles
• Building a free-standing mausoleum
• Building a free-standing entrance to our crypt
• Building a crypt inside the garage
• Creating a burial vault for the other garage door
• Creating a free-standing tomb in the garage
• Creating dried-out corpses

The basic plans for the structures are below:

The crypt entrance

The mausoleum

The basic ideas:

This would be perfect for the New Orleans-themed section. 

Image courtesy of the Vatican

Image courtesy of National Geographic

Once the structures are built, they'll be extensively weathered and detailed. The crypt entrance will (ideally) have two wooden doors (foam really) or two wrought-iron (PVC) gates, and a broken section of wall on the side. The trick-or-treaters will enter the front gate, pass through the gap in the wall, and make their way to the front porch. They'll be able to look inside the garage to see the crypt scene, which will be lit with a blue spotlight above (a "moonlight" effect) and candelabras/candles for accent lighting. Inside the crypt entrance is still up in the air. I haven't decided what, if anything, to put in there. I'm debating either a "stained glass" window effect or just a painting on the unbroken wall, with more accent lighting.

The mausoleum for the New Orleans side will have Spanish Moss draped everywhere and maybe some flat tombstones on the driveway to give it a crowded look common in cemetaries in that area. Maybe we'll do a firefly lighting effect, and we'll probably have a static blacklit ghost in the mausoleum itself. Potentially may try a Pepper's Ghost effect in the crypt, we'll see how much time we end up with.

Happy Hallownewyear

Welcome to 2014!
SpiderWitch, Drac Jr, and your gracious host had a most enjoyable holiday. And now that the Christmas ornaments are put away and everything is back to normal (more or less), it's time to start thinking about Halloween.

If we learned anything from last year, it's that we need more time to accommodate the last-minute projects and the stuff which doesn't work the way we envisioned. So we'll be starting in July. Which means we need to determine the project list, well, now if we're going to be ready to start.

SpiderWitch wants to do a New Orleans-themed vignette on the side of the house opposite the front door. Spanish moss, urns with flowers and candles in front of above-ground crypts, maybe some lightning bugs darting lazily among the trees. If we could open the crypt, perhaps a ghoul inside with a fluorescent light.

In front of the garage, we plan to put up a canopy and build some walls to represent a crypt entrance- wrought iron doors on rusty hinges will open up to a dark enclosed space; the garage door will be up, but blocked off by another wrought iron gate opening up on a crypt with skeletons resting on niches in the walls, and a central sarcophagus. Maybe a Pepper's Ghost type illusion in here.

Exiting through a hole in the "wall", the guests will make their way to the porch, where the front door will have been replaced by Drac's coffin lid. Maybe- this might be too scary, and honestly I'm still on the fence about it.

We're trying to figure out where to put "the girls"- our Weeping Angels. We plan to put at least one of them on a turntable and have her move in response to guests.

We're going to try to use social media to do a "dress rehearsal" where the kids can come out in costume and take pictures ahead of the big day.

Stay tuned, we'll be updating the blog with more projects...