Halloween Haunted House | Ventura Woodwork

How We Turned Our Garage Into a Haunted House

How We Turned Our Garage Into a Haunted House

By Ventura Woodcraft October 29, 2023

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Step into the realm of terror as we unravel the spine-tingling transformation of our ordinary garage into a hair-raising haunted house, brought to you by Ventura Woodwork. With a vision of darkness and a knack for craftsmanship, we'll guide you through the eerie journey of design, construction, and hauntingly thrilling details. Get ready to experience the chilling ambiance, ghostly apparitions, and horrifying surprises that await behind our garage door. Join us in this haunting adventure, where Ventura Woodwork breathes life into the macabre, and your wildest nightmares come to life.

CLEAN UP AND CLEAR OUT

First things first, we needed to clear the space. It was time to take out the car and clear the space in preparation for the haunted house. In our case, we cleaned out half of the 2-car garage for the haunted house. No worries though. Our haunted house still had enough space for a long hallway and 3 rooms!

DRAW A FLOOR PLAN

While a spontaneous approach might work, crafting a well-thought-out plan typically leads to a more successful haunted house. We created a layout that started with a long narrow hallway and rooms within your garage, establishing an entrance and exit. Since we were only using one half of the garage, it was important for us to create a maze to best utilize the real estate. We even created a boxed space in the last room which allowed our crew to hide and scare guests.

HIT THE HALLOWEEN AND HARDWARE STORE

We let our imagination run free at the Halloween store. The scare décor consisted of animatronics, blood props, masks, scary picture frames, floating masked men, cobwebs, bloody drapes, black lights, and strobe lights.

From the hardware store, here’s a list of items we used to build the frame and walls:

2 x 4 planks
Nail gun and nails

Staple gun and staples

Drill

Screws
Volleyball net
Black poly plastic sheet roll 10’ x 100’ (6 mil thick)

Halloween wall backdrop

BUILD THE WALLS

Your haunted house is not just about monsters and smoke machines; it's essential to create the right atmosphere. There are plenty of ways to build walls to divide the hallways and rooms. We opted to use 2 x 4 planks to create the frame. For the walls, we stapled thick plastic wrap roll which also served to create the dark and eerie atmosphere we were aiming for. We opted for a heavy duty plastic that was strong enough to hold up to multiple uses over years.

DECORATE

Now for my favorite part. Once the walls were up, it was time to decorate! Here are our decoration plans from entrance to exit.

Entrance: The entrance consists of a sheet of black plastic which we stapled to the outside of the garage entrance. One the left and right side, we cut slits to create entrance and exit curtains.

Hallway: Our entrance consisted of a long hallway. This hallway slowly narrowed before reaching the first scare room. We used a circus funhouse wall scene setter. The other wall consisted of an IT scene setter to help cover the black plastic which also helped set the mood for our guests. Towards the end of the hallway, we created curtains with the same black plastic and strips of hanging gray cloth.

Grouchy Room:

Pennywise Room:

Masked Men / Photo Frames Room:

This C shaped room, although didn’t have any animatronics, was the largest room which allowed us to hide and scare our guests. Dark corners and box room allowed our scarers to easily disguise themselves are part of the décor.

DON’T FORGET THE OUTSIDE

As much time as it took to get the haunted house up and running, it was also important to decorate the front yard. Living in El Paso, the weather can be quite unpredictable so we didn’t want to use props that could easily be pushed away by heavy wind. We were able to use these multi-color flood lights which we staked into the ground.

MAKE A SOUNDTRACK

It was important to set the mood, so we played creepy haunted house background music.

CAST A CREW

We wanted to meet and greet all our guests, so it was important to recruit a couple scarers to rotate with. The more the merrier.

SHOW TIME

After weeks of hard work, it was a great feeling to have the haunted house all up and running. Don’t forget to create your invites and share your haunted house with everyone. We created a Facebook event and send word via texts and speaking with neighbors.