Yard Plotted to scale, promise

make it yourself

Plywood Crypt

A stone crypt front with a roof over it, built like a stage flat: one sheet of plywood for the face, a light frame behind, and black fabric for the sides. It gives a covered-rated animatronic somewhere dry to stand on a yard with no porch, and it looks better than the prop does on its own.

  • $127 ish
  • 6 hrs start to finish
  • weekend carpenter
  • 5' 10" tall when done

grab this stuff

What you need

  • 1/2 in. exterior plywood, 4x8 ft sheet, for the facade $44
  • 1/2 in. exterior plywood, 4x4 ft half sheet, for the roof $22
  • 5× 2x2 furring, 8 ft, for the frame $20
  • Black landscape fabric, for the sides $12
  • Exterior flat gray paint, quart $9
  • Black paint, sample pot, for the dry brush $6
  • 2-1/2 in. exterior screws and staples $6
  • 2× 24 in. steel stakes and guy rope $8
  • All in $127

Tools, and that is it

  • Circular saw or jigsaw
  • Drill
  • Staple gun
  • Long straightedge or a chalk line
  • Sanding block
  • A good brush, and an old ruined one for the dry brushing

before the saw

How it comes off the sheet

Everything fits on 1/2 in. exterior plywood, 4 x 8 ft sheet. Draw the whole layout before you cut the first piece.

Facade48" x 70"Roof brackets and back baffle48" x 25"48" wide96" tall
nesting

The facade takes the full width of the sheet, which is the point: no ripping down the long edge, and the two straightest cuts on the whole job are already done for you by the mill. The roof does NOT come off this sheet. It is 48 x 42 in. and wants a separate 4 x 4 ft half sheet, which is the cheapest way to buy that much material and leaves a 48 x 6 in. strip for the parapet cap.

shapes

Stencils

Print these, cut them out, draw around them. Anything bigger than a sheet of paper prints as large as it fits with the scale written on it, so you can enlarge it at a copy store or copy it square by square.

Crypt facade, 48 x 70 in. 48" × 70"
Print the stencils (opens in a new tab)
printer gotcha

Set page scaling to 100 percent or "actual size", never "fit to page". Every sheet has a ruler on it. Measure it before you trust it.

Or buy a reusable one

Mylar stencils survive paint and last for years, which is worth it if you are making more than a couple. These are searches rather than specific listings, because the good sellers rotate.

here we go

How to make it

  1. Cut the facade and the doorway

    The facade is the full 48 in. width of the sheet and 70 in. up it, so two of the four edges are already cut and already square. Mark the stepped top from the stencil and cut it with the circular saw. For the doorway, mark the two jambs 10 in. in from each edge and run them 34 in. up, then swing the arch off a nail and a 14 in. string rather than tracing it. Drill a starter hole inside the opening and jigsaw it out.

    oops-proofing

    Cut the outside before the opening. Take the doorway out first and the sheet flexes into two legs joined at the top, which is when the saw wanders.

  2. Build the frame behind it

    Make a 2x2 box 36 in. deep and screw it to the back of the facade around the edges, with an extra upright either side of the doorway. Run the two back legs a few inches long so you can drive them into the ground.

    oops-proofing

    Frame the doorway itself. Those 10 in. legs carry the whole parapet, and a bare edge of half inch ply flexes every time the wind gets behind it.

  3. Fit the roof with a fall to the back

    The roof is 48 x 42 in. and sits high at the facade and about 6 in. lower at the back, so water runs off behind rather than down the front of the arch. Let it overhang the facade by 4 to 6 in. and hold that overhang up with the two triangular brackets off the scrap.

    oops-proofing

    Falling the roof forward puts the whole run-off straight down the doorway and onto the prop you built this to keep dry, which rather undoes the afternoon.

  4. Skin the sides with fabric, not plywood

    Staple black landscape fabric down both sides and across most of the back. It is cheap, it stores rolled up, and after dark it reads as solid black.

    oops-proofing

    Do not board the sides in. Two solid plywood sides double the cost, double the weight, and turn the whole thing into a sail. The fabric lets a gust pass through, which is the only reason this stands up in November.

  5. Paint it stone

    Flat gray all over, front and edges. When it is dry, draw the block courses on with a pencil and a straightedge, then take the ruined brush, load it with black, wipe nearly all of it off on a rag, and drag it over the pencil lines and down the edges. Uneven is correct. Stone is not one color.

    oops-proofing

    Gray straight from the tin and nothing else is a gray board. Two minutes of dry brushing is the entire difference between plywood and masonry, and it is the cheapest step in the build.

  6. Stand it, stake it, then put the prop in

    Face the doorway at the street, drive the two back legs in, and guy the top back corners to a pair of stakes. Then stand the animatronic in the opening, far enough back that the roof covers it and close enough to the front that people can see it.

    oops-proofing

    Four feet by six of upright plywood is a sail whatever the sides are made of. Stake it and guy it on the day you build it, not after the first forecast.

one more thing

Built for the one yard shape with no porch, but useful on any of them: a covered prop standing in a crypt beats the same prop standing on bare boards. The sheltered depth is about 36 in. under the roof plus the overhang, which covers every covered-rated piece in the catalog except the impaled zombie, whose base sprawls nearly 48 in. and will sit with its front edge proud. Turn that one side on and it tucks in. It comes apart into a facade, a frame and a roof, so it stores flat against a garage wall and goes up again in twenty minutes next year.

where it goes

Layouts this one lives in

Same build, any yard shape. Here is where it lands.

  • → The Old Cemetery on a Wide Shallow, No Porch Leaning stones, an iron fence with a gap in it, and candles along a path that nobody has swept in years. The one Halloween theme with nothing alive in it, which is what makes people slow down instead of laugh.
  • → The Old Cemetery on a Narrow Shallow with Porch Leaning stones, an iron fence with a gap in it, and candles along a path that nobody has swept in years. The one Halloween theme with nothing alive in it, which is what makes people slow down instead of laugh.
  • → The Old Cemetery on a L-Shaped with Projecting Garage Leaning stones, an iron fence with a gap in it, and candles along a path that nobody has swept in years. The one Halloween theme with nothing alive in it, which is what makes people slow down instead of laugh.
  • → The Old Cemetery on a Deep Narrow Leaning stones, an iron fence with a gap in it, and candles along a path that nobody has swept in years. The one Halloween theme with nothing alive in it, which is what makes people slow down instead of laugh.
  • → The Old Cemetery on a Corner Lot Leaning stones, an iron fence with a gap in it, and candles along a path that nobody has swept in years. The one Halloween theme with nothing alive in it, which is what makes people slow down instead of laugh.
  • → The Old Cemetery on a Split-Level or Raised Ranch Leaning stones, an iron fence with a gap in it, and candles along a path that nobody has swept in years. The one Halloween theme with nothing alive in it, which is what makes people slow down instead of laugh.
  • → The Old Cemetery on a Sloped or Terraced Leaning stones, an iron fence with a gap in it, and candles along a path that nobody has swept in years. The one Halloween theme with nothing alive in it, which is what makes people slow down instead of laugh.
  • → The Old Cemetery on a Small Urban Postage Stamp Leaning stones, an iron fence with a gap in it, and candles along a path that nobody has swept in years. The one Halloween theme with nothing alive in it, which is what makes people slow down instead of laugh.
  • → The Old Cemetery on a Circular Driveway Leaning stones, an iron fence with a gap in it, and candles along a path that nobody has swept in years. The one Halloween theme with nothing alive in it, which is what makes people slow down instead of laugh.
  • → The Old Cemetery on a Long Driveway, Rural Frontage Leaning stones, an iron fence with a gap in it, and candles along a path that nobody has swept in years. The one Halloween theme with nothing alive in it, which is what makes people slow down instead of laugh.
  • → Zombies on a Wide Shallow, No Porch The lawn is coming apart and things are getting out of it. Headstones, hands, and half-figures pushing up through the grass, arranged so the whole yard looks like one bad night rather than a store display.
  • → Zombies on a Narrow Shallow with Porch The lawn is coming apart and things are getting out of it. Headstones, hands, and half-figures pushing up through the grass, arranged so the whole yard looks like one bad night rather than a store display.
  • → Zombies on a L-Shaped with Projecting Garage The lawn is coming apart and things are getting out of it. Headstones, hands, and half-figures pushing up through the grass, arranged so the whole yard looks like one bad night rather than a store display.
  • → Zombies on a Deep Narrow The lawn is coming apart and things are getting out of it. Headstones, hands, and half-figures pushing up through the grass, arranged so the whole yard looks like one bad night rather than a store display.
  • → Zombies on a Corner Lot The lawn is coming apart and things are getting out of it. Headstones, hands, and half-figures pushing up through the grass, arranged so the whole yard looks like one bad night rather than a store display.
  • → Zombies on a Split-Level or Raised Ranch The lawn is coming apart and things are getting out of it. Headstones, hands, and half-figures pushing up through the grass, arranged so the whole yard looks like one bad night rather than a store display.
  • → Zombies on a Sloped or Terraced The lawn is coming apart and things are getting out of it. Headstones, hands, and half-figures pushing up through the grass, arranged so the whole yard looks like one bad night rather than a store display.
  • → Zombies on a Small Urban Postage Stamp The lawn is coming apart and things are getting out of it. Headstones, hands, and half-figures pushing up through the grass, arranged so the whole yard looks like one bad night rather than a store display.
  • → Zombies on a Circular Driveway The lawn is coming apart and things are getting out of it. Headstones, hands, and half-figures pushing up through the grass, arranged so the whole yard looks like one bad night rather than a store display.
  • → Zombies on a Long Driveway, Rural Frontage The lawn is coming apart and things are getting out of it. Headstones, hands, and half-figures pushing up through the grass, arranged so the whole yard looks like one bad night rather than a store display.