Eerie chic

Comments

This is about the only season when we encourage cobwebs on furniture and enjoy the ear piercing sounds of a squeaky door hinge or floor joist. Perhaps it is why we love the decor of this eerie holiday ~ Halloween.

Today, Halloween decor is as plentiful as Christmas. Black cats, oversized bats, faux pumpkins, cobwebs, ghouls and ghosts are affordable and adorable.

There is no excuse not to have a little scary fun at home over the next few weeks.

Begin by draping cobwebs over everything in the foyer - mirrors, chairs, even the chandelier. Stand a black cat on the foyer table and hang a bat or two from the chandelier. Add a candelabrum filled with tall black tapered candles on the table, and stack a few pumpkins in the corner. Voila - instant 'eerie chic.'

If your foyer table is usually home to a vase of fresh cut flowers, allow the last batch to simply die and dry out in the vase. Yes, it is chic to keep dead flowers on the table for this seasonal look. For something really different, spray the dead flowers black - it's outstanding and very fashionable the last two weeks of October.

If you are hosting a party or having a few friends over for an evening of ghoulish fun consider decorating - or rather un-decorating - the living room and dining room.

Purchase a bolt (about 30 yards) of cheese cloth from your local fabric store and begin draping the cloth over the living room and dining room furniture (think back to your favorite ghost story). Cut out a few holes (to give the look of moth eaten edges) here and there on the cheesecloth. On the fireplace mantel hang a picture of your favorite ghoul, monster, wizard or witch in an ornate gold frame.

Inexpensive gilt frames are available at local department stores, and the large poster size pictures of our favorite monsters are available in the poster shop. Or, better yet, you can dress up as Elvira, have a photograph taken and then enlarge it to fill the frame.

From the corner of your frame to the edge of the fireplace mantel stretch a faux cobweb. Beside the picture add a vase of dried twigs that you picked from the bushes in your backyard - a light coating of black spray paint makes them appear even eerier. In the fire-box itself (as long as you are not planning on lighting the fireplace) insert a black caldron and scatter bones amongst the ashes.

Set a plastic mouse, snake or rat beside a table lamp. In the windows, place silhouette cutouts of cats or ghoulish figures. Replace light bulbs with amber, black or purple coloured bulbs to soften and cast an evil glow throughout the room.

Remember to put a stack of monsterish CDs in the player.

Don't forget the powder room, as dinner guests are sure to visit this space. Fill the soap dish with tiny Halloween shaped soaps (cats, pumpkins or bats). Weave a rubber snake around the toilet paper holder and dust the vanity mirror with cobwebs. You may even want to draw a crack onto the mirror using glass paint or a metallic silver felt pen (the ink will remove easily using a flat razor blade). On the back of the toilet tank set a faux stuffed cat. Hand towels printed or embroidered with Halloween motifs are inexpensively available at all of our favorite home decor stores.

Halloween decor is great fun - I believe it brings out the child in us. Have fun and enjoy the days off from your regular cleaning routine. Happy Halloween!