7000 sq ft plastic + 400 ft extension cords + 250 ft twine + 14 cans of black spray paint + 7 months of planning and building + 7 days of set up + 6 hours of tear down + 45 minutes of scaring = 1 happy five year old

This year's haunted house was 3 times the size as the first. It was a lot of work but everything worked out as planned.

New props for this year include:

• toe pincher coffin - I got the plans for this from Shallow Valley. It was really easy (and cheap) to make.
• metal cage - Another one from Shallow Valley. This is a great way to make a realistic looking metal cage very cheap.
• ship's wheel - My parents made my wife and I a wooden wagon a few years ago. It was beginning to fall apart so I salvaged one of the wheels for this project. I bought some wooden rollers at a craft store, cut them in half and stuck them around the rim to create a respectable ship wheel.
• cannon - Had an idea to build a cannon and lucked out on finding an 18" sewer pipe for my cannon. Follow the link for details on this prop.
• pillory - Made from scrap wood that I salvaged from my in-laws front deck after a remodeling.
• gallows - Another project created from salvaged landscape timbers.
• graveyard - Styrofoam, an exacto knife, a rotary tool and some paint were used for the tombstones. The fence is lathe strips connected with brads.

Additional pictures can be found here.

I wanted some cheap props to spice up my forest hay ride so I came up with these spiders and bats made from stuff that I found laying around in the yard. The bat is a magnolia seed pod with two magnolia leaves for wings. The spider is a pine cone with stick legs, two acorn cupules eyes and sticks for fangs. Hot glue everything together and you're done.

Wood Bats

Wood Spiders

More pictures here.

Materials

• sill seal
• 3' lathe strip (sword) / 16" lathe strip (dagger)
• flat black spray paint
• brown spray paint
• silver spray paint
• staple gun

Instructions:

The process of building a sword or a dagger are almost identical. The only difference is in the length of the blade and the hilt guard.

Make the blade:

With a saw, taper one end of the lathe strip and paint silver.

Make the hilt:

Cut two pieces of sill seal long enough to wrap around the lathe strip. Paint the sill seal black. Placing the sill seal with the ridges facing out and running perpendicular to the blade, staple the sill seal to the bottom of the blade. Your finished hilt should be approximately 5" long so you will need to cut the second piece of sill seal for the correct length.

Make a sword hilt guard:

Cut a strip of sill seal 14.5". At this point, you need to get creative depending on how you want your hilt guard to look. I wanted a 'pirate' sword, so I trimmed the sill seal to the approximate dimensions below:

Spray paint the hilt guard brown. Place the slit over the tip of the sword and push down toward the hilt. Bend the other end around to the base of the blade and staple in place.

Make a dagger hilt guard:

Cut a strip of sill seal 4.5" x 1.75". Cut a 1.5" slit in the center running the length of the strip. Spray paint the hilt guard black. Place the slit over the tip of the dagger and push down toward the hilt.

Additional pictures can be found here.

Materials

cannon

• 5' 8" - sewer pipe
• sill seal
• flat black spray paint
• frisbee
• 2" pipe
• 3" ball
• styrofoam
• wood screws
• staple gun
• fun-noodle

truck

• 2x4s
• wood screws
• 2" pipe bracket (2)
• towel and brown fabric dye (optional)

Instructions:

Build the rear of the cannon:

Cut a 1" section of 2" PVC and place it between a frisbee and a 3" ball. To secure the pieces together, drill a hole in the center of the frisbee and ball and run a threaded metal bar through everything and cap the ends with large nuts. Once everything is tightly together, spray paint the whole thing black.

Attach the rear to the cannon:

The lip of the frisbee fits perfectly over the edge of the sewer pipe. To secure it, insert four wood screws through the lip into the pipe.

Add texture to the cannon barrel:

Using the sill sealer, cut strips the circumference of the pipe and use a staple gun to hold the strips in place. The easiest way to do this is to start at the rear and work toward the open end. The contours on the open end of the pipe require customized thinner strips that you'll have to measure individually. Once the entire pipe is covered, paint the foam with black spray paint.

Build the barrel muzzle:

The default diameter of an 8" sewer pipe is, of course, 8". If you look at a real cannon, you'll notice that they have much smaller openings. To achieved this look, buy a pre-cut round piece of styrofoam that is the same circumference or larger and manually shave off the exterior until it fits snugly into the end of the sewer pipe. Cut a center hole of 3 1/2". To paint the styrofoam, use black acrylic paint and brush (don't use spray paint).

Build the truck:

The cannon truck is made from old 2x4s that I had lying around and some wood screws. Here are the basic dimensions of my truck.

Once the truck is assembled, add a 2" pipe bracket to each side and cut notches into the wood beneath them to create circular opening for the cannon 'arms'. Optionally, take some brown towels (I dyed an old white towel brown) and make cushions for your cannon to rest on. These help prevent the paint on your cannon from getting scratched.

Build the cannon 'arms':

These are built last so that they are detachable and so much about their design depended on the finished truck and cannon. Cut sections of a fun-noodle and spray paint black.

Finished cannon:

Additional pictures can be found here.

My daughter is getting in to the Halloween spirit. She's been listening to a Halloween mix cd that I made and loves Li'l Red Riding Hood by Sam the Sham. Here's a video I took of her on my cell phone (sorry about the quality).

Started prepping for this year's haunted house which will be located in my uncle-in-law's barn. I've posted some pictures here. So far, the twine is strung to hold the plastic walls and a few strobe lights are in place.