Do it yourself Free
One weekend, a sheet of plywood and some string lights. Costs almost nothing and still stops traffic.
| Spot | What to get | How big | How many | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A |
Giant PVC Spider
Build it
The star. Centered on the front door, 8 ft out. Without a porch to anchor to, this piece is the only thing telling people where the entrance is.
|
3' 6" H | 1 | $34 |
| B |
50 in. Lighted Spiders, pair (opens in a new tab)
Amazon
2 pieces
Sidekick, left. Left of the door, 10 to 12 ft out from the centerpiece. Push these further apart than feels right. A wide facade eats the gap.
|
1' 3" H | 1 | $25.99 |
| C |
Hairy Spiders, 6 pack, 30 in. to 12 in. (opens in a new tab)
Amazon
6 pieces
Sidekick, right. Do not put these on the lawn. The legs bend, so they belong on things people pass within a foot of: the rail, the step edge, the mailbox, the door frame, the underside of the porch light. Three sizes in the box, so graduate them, biggest nearest the door and smallest furthest out, as though they came from somewhere. Never space them evenly and never in a line. Two together and one apart reads as infestation; six at equal intervals reads as bunting. They are flocked fabric on wire, so they will take a shower and will not take six weeks of rain. Bring them in after Halloween or write them off as a $16 annual.
|
n/a H | 1 | $19.99 |
| D |
Purple Solar Path Stakes, 10 pack (opens in a new tab)
Amazon
10 pieces
Walk and bed edge lights. Along the short connector from the driveway to the door, then following the front bed. The walk is stubby here, so borrow the bed line to make the run long enough to matter.
|
1' 3" H | 1 | $27.99 |
| E |
Orange Incandescent Mini Lights, 300 count (opens in a new tab)
Amazon
300 pieces
Roofline. The full run, gutter line and both gable rakes. This is the single biggest thing you can do to a wide flat house, and it is the one people skip because it means getting the ladder out.
|
2" H | 2 | $51.98 |
| F |
Bare Arch, Dressed
Build it
Past the driveway. Straddle the walk with it so people go through the web rather than look at it. Stretch the webbing thin and anchor it at a few points across the opening, pulling it out into strands rather than draping it as a sheet: a sheet of web reads as a bedsheet, and thin strands catch the light and move. Leave the middle of the opening genuinely clear at head height, because people will walk through this in the dark in costume. Buy an extra pack of web for it; one pack does the arch or the shrubs, not both. Put a spider on it, high on one shoulder rather than centered.
|
7' 4" H | 1 | $31 |
2 things need an outlet, about 2.2 amps all together. That all fits on one 15 amp circuit, you are fine. Outdoor GFCI outlets only, and leave a drip loop in the cord at every plug so rain runs off instead of in.
You will also need
The cord is the part everybody forgets, and stores run out of them at the peak of every season. Outdoor rated only, and plugged into a GFCI outlet.
- 1× 25 ft Outdoor Extension Cord, 16 gauge (opens in a new tab) 2 plug-in pieces across 1 spot $16.98
- 1× Outdoor Timer with Photocell (opens in a new tab) Switches the whole display on and off on its own $14.98
- 1× AA Batteries, 8 pack (opens in a new tab) 6 AA needed, none included $8.99
About $40.95 of hardware, on top of the $190.95 of decorations. Buy it once and it comes back out every year.