With spooky season here, it’s time to dust off your outdoor fall decor, hit the costume store, and scope out the best haunted houses in your neighborhood. Better yet, take it a step further and learn how to make a haunted house of your own this year.
While it might sound like an ambitious project, we’re here to help you tackle all the steps from start to finish. We’ll also share some of our favorite DIY haunted house ideas. Whether you’re going for whimsical, spine-chilling, or anything in between, here’s how to make a haunted house that captures the spirit of Halloween.
How to Make a Haunted House for Halloween
You can build a haunted house just about anywhere with enough space to bring your vision to life—from the driveway of your home to your living room. Turning your spooky concept into the real thing, however, requires some legwork.
Fortunately, we’ve got you covered with the easy-to-follow steps below.
1. Plan Your Concept
When planning your haunted house, start by deciding on a few key elements:
- Theme: Carnival, asylum, witches’ coven, cemetery, mad scientist’s lab, zombie apocalypse, etc.
- Scare zones: How many areas do you want to include, and how intense should they be?
- Mood: Ominous, grisly, humorous, family-friendly, etc.
Once your vision is all set, sketch out a basic flow, for example: entrance, tunnel, two to three rooms, and exit.
2. Gather Your Materials
Now that you have a clear vision, it’s time to gather all the materials for your haunted house’s structure. Here are some of the essential materials most DIY haunted houses require—with cost-effective swaps included for those who want to know how to make a haunted house on a budget:
- PVC pipes and connectors
- Budget alternative: Free or low-cost PVCs from Facebook Marketplace
- 2×4 plywood or lumber panels
- Budget alternative: Large appliance boxes or free wood pallets
- Blackout fabric or plastic sheets
- Budget alternative: Black trash bags cut open on the seams
- Sandbags or heavy weights
- Budget alternative: Cinder blocks or water jugs
- Duct tape and zip ties
- Budget alternative: Twine or cloth strips
- Floor tarps or drop cloths
- Budget alternative: Old blankets, sheets, or tablecloths
| How to Set Up Your Own Haunted House Select a theme for your haunted house, then assemble the materials, plan the layout, build the structure, and then make it your own with interactive features, audiovisual elements, or even costumed characters for a memorable experience. |
3. Build the Support Structure
We’ve arrived at the fun part: rolling up your sleeves to start building. First, you’ll need to erect a support structure—the framework that will hold the plastic sheeting or fabric sheets.
Make sure to reinforce it by securing the base with weights and cross-supports before moving on. Then you can add the rest of the walls, floor, and ceiling of your haunted house.
Here’s how to build out each part of the structure—layout, frame, walls and ceilings, and floor.
Layout:
- Use chalk or tape to outline the haunted house’s path on the ground.
- Leave 35–40 inches of space to accommodate both foot traffic and mobility devices.
- Mark where the entries, rooms, and exits will be, too.
Frame:
- Cut the PVC pipes to size (7–8 feet for the vertical wall pieces, 4–5 feet for the top and bottom rails).
- Use connectors to attach the PVC pipes in rectangles—one for each wall of the haunted house.
- Next, lay wood panels or pallets on the ground to create a base and attach the bottom rails of each PVC rectangle to the base with zip ties, duct tape, or twine.
- Reinforce each wall with a wood panel, cardboard sheet, or pallet, securing it with duct tape.
- Anchor the base and walls with sandbags or cinder blocks for extra stability.
Walls and Ceilings:
- Drape black fabric or plastic sheets over the top of your haunted house structure to form the ceiling. This will ensure the inside stays dark and the outside looks finished. Secure the fabric with zip ties, duct tape, or twine.
- Next, cover both the interior and exterior sides of each wall with black fabric and attach the walls to the frame.
- Hang black fabric inside the haunted house to separate each room and attach it to the top PVC rails near the ceiling.
- Cut a flap in each sheet, so visitors can pass through.
- Finally, install a wood panel or curtain at the entrance and exit to create doorways.
Floor:
- Lay drop cloths, tarps, blankets, or other sturdy coverings over the wood panel to give the floor a finished look.
- Secure these with sandbags or cinder blocks.
4. Create a Dark Tunnel
A tunnel is an optional but fun way to introduce guests to the haunted house. You’ll place the tunnel between the entrance and the first room, and once you designate the space for it, this feature couldn’t be easier to set up.
Hang two sheets or blankets parallel to each other from the ceiling, then drape another sheet overhead, so it sags low, creating a slightly claustrophobic vibe.
Install a dim light in the tunnel and conceal a small Bluetooth speaker in a corner that plays eerie ambient music to escalate tension. Cut exit flaps in the sheets along your tunnel in case the atmosphere feels too spooky for some visitors.
5. Set Up Extension Cords
If you plan to have fog machines, sound equipment, and light effects, you’ll need some outdoor-safe extension cords to operate them.
Run these extension cords flush along the top or bottom edges of the support structure (never across footpaths for safety reasons) and secure them to the frame with electrical tape.
Plug the extension cords into GFCI-protected outlets whenever possible, and if you have to use power strips, be careful not to daisy chain or overload them. Keep the power strips away from fabric and other flammable materials as well.
6. Illuminate the Footpath
Line the footpath with soft battery-powered LED light fixtures, so your visitors can see where they’re going. As an alternative, you can also place the lights inside jack-o-lanterns, skulls, or other Halloween decor, so they’re still visible but not as obtrusive. Next, designate the exits with small arrows made with glow tape or neon markers.
| Pro Tip: Make sure to walk through the entire haunted house at night before it opens to ensure the path is easy to follow, the lights and other special effects work, and there are no unresolved safety hazards. |
5 DIY Haunted House Ideas
Once you know the basics of how to make a haunted house, it’s time to add creepy decorative touches and spooky special effects. Here are five DIY haunted house ideas to take your creation to the next level. You can also use these ideas to set the mood for a memorable Halloween party theme.
1. Use a Fog Machine
A fog machine will give the haunted house a mysterious and immersive feel. Place it near the entrance to shroud visitors in an otherworldly haze as they step inside. You can rent a fog machine from an event company or pick one up on Facebook Marketplace.
2. Layer in Audio and Light Effects
Black lights, strobes, and flickering lanterns or candles can help intensify the creepy vibes, while sound effects like distant screams, howling winds, or creaking doors are great for amplifying suspense. Hide a Bluetooth speaker in your haunted house and set it to loop an audio track (such as this Scary Ambient Halloween Night playlist) as visitors walk through.
3. Add Tactile Scares
Transform peeled grapes into eyeballs, cold spaghetti into worms, and gelatin cubes into brains. Then, place these props in bowls throughout your haunted house, so visitors can reach in and feel those squishy textures for a hands-on scare.
4. Enlist a Few Costumed Characters
Ask friends or family members to dress up as ghosts, zombies, vampires, and other characters. Whether they whisper behind the walls for an unsettling thrill or emerge from the shadows for a classic jump scare, live performers make the experience more fun.
5. Add Props
Stretch apart cotton balls until they resemble cobwebs. Find some creepy dolls, skeletons, and clown masks. Scatter these items around your haunted house to set the stage for maximum fright.
| How to Make a Haunted House EasilyThe easiest way to make a haunted house is to build a simple, reusable structure that you put together each year. When Halloween is over, just disassemble the frame and keep it in a self-storage unit. When it comes time to set it up again, add some fresh decor, and you’re back in business. |
Store Your Haunted House Away Until Next Year
It takes both time and effort to make a haunted house that your neighbors will love. While some decorations should be thrown out after Halloween (we’re looking at you, peeled-grape eyeballs), you can store most haunted house elements in a CubeSmart storage unit. Whether you need a lot of storage room or just a little, we have a number of storage unit sizes to choose from. Find a CubeSmart storage facility near you.
