Just for Fun!

Fall is officially here and you might be getting into the autumnal spirit. Why not combine your love for fall with the upcoming festive nature of Halloween? Halloween is a nostalgic time for many people, since it’s so tied into childhood play, imagination, and fun. If you’re used to living in a larger space, don’t let your move to a Houston apartment dampen your Halloween spirit. Whether you’re >moving from a house to an apartment, setting up your first student apartment, or downsizing for another reason, these apartment decorating tips will help you fit all of the spooky fun of Halloween into your new home:

Start with an autumn theme.

Bringing Halloween into your Houston apartment can be as simple as changing the colors and textures of decorations and accessories you already own. Use earthier, autumn shades for window treatments, pillows, tablecloths, and other easily swapped-out decor. Add throw blankets, rugs, and other textiles in warmer, cozier fabrics. Of course, for a more specifically spooky feel, you can also add elegant black accent pieces, or add swathes of black fabrics such as black curtains, black slipcovers for furniture, and black throw blankets.

Use the outdoor spaces you have.

Though you may no longer have a yard or a porch to decorate, don’t forget the outdoor spaces you do have. You can share your love of Halloween by decorating your Houston apartment’s front door (whether it opens to the outside, or just to a hallway where your neighbors in the building can see it), windows, and balcony, if you have one. Our previous post on outdoor Halloween decorating ideas offers plenty of possibilities, plus links to tutorials for DIY decorations.

Remember the small-space decorating mantra: Think up!

Halloween decorating particularly lends itself to that classic technique for small spaces: Use vertical space, hanging up whatever you can. For Halloween, this can mean faux cobwebs draped on light fixtures and in corners. It can also mean swarms of paper bats hanging from the ceiling, funny family photos on the walls, or subtly spooky shapes as decals on kitchen cabinets — all DIY Halloween decorating ideas you can read more about in this post from Apartment Therapy.

Keep pets and small children safe.

Have fun decorating your Houston apartment, but be sure to think about who will be in the space. If you have pets or small children, or you hope some will visit during the Halloween season, take special care to keep electrical outlets covered, wiring in good condition, and anything with a flame in a stable spot far out of reach. Be mindful, too, of anything that little ones or furry friends might knock over or ingest.

We at Houston Apartment Insiders wish you a spooky, safe, and Happy Halloween!

If you love Halloween, don’t let a small space keep you from expressing yourself, even if you’re moving from a house to an apartment, and you’re just getting used to life without a yard. Relocating within Houston or across the country doesn’t have to spoil your holiday fun. There are plenty of ways to show your spooky side in an apartment of any size. Here are just a few apartment Halloween decorating ideas to get you started:

 

Use the front door — especially if you love trick-or-treaters.

Every apartment has a front door, whether it looks out into a hallway where your neighbors walk by, or it faces outside for the whole world to see. Decking out your door is one of the simplest Halloween apartment decorating ideas, and it’s especially helpful if you look forward to seeing trick-or-treaters on Halloween night. Make your door spooky, but not too scary, to let the little ones know that you’ll be happy to see them — and ready with the candy. Remember that door wreaths aren’t just for Christmas. Spooky, silly, or sweet Halloween wreaths are easy DIY crafts, and there are plenty of ideas and tutorial links at About.com’s Home channel and at Better Homes and Gardens’ web site. If you’d rather go all-out and wrap your whole door in Halloween goodness, check out this post from the Homedit Interior Design and Architecture blog. It shows monster doors, cobweb doors, crime scene doors, and more.

 

Make exterior windows extra spooky.

Who needs a yard to decorate, when your apartment has so many windows? Classic Halloween window ideas include perching jack-o-lanterns just inside, spreading fake cobwebs hung with plastic spiders, and setting spooky candles (well-watched real ones or battery-operated ones, with or without dripping fake blood) in the windowsill. Spooky silhouettes are classic apartment Halloween decorations, too. This tutorial from Make magazine shows how to enlarge any image you like, trace it onto inexpensive black paper, and set it up in a backlit window. For more ideas, check out this collection of 25 Halloween window silhouettes from Shelterness. Not scary enough for you? Try hanging a simple white sheet over the window, and projecting a ghostly video onto it. Truly terrifying projections, like this one, can be downloaded from Ebay and other sources.

 

Got a balcony? The possibilities are endless.

If your Houston apartment has a balcony, it has all of the decorating potential of a small front yard. Jack-o-lanterns and painted pumpkins placed here should be safe from pumpkin-smashing tricksters, so go crazy with the gourds, if you like. Many of the Halloween apartment decorating ideas from this Apartment Therapy post will work well for balconies, too, including glowing ghosts, paper lanterns, and dry-ice-breathing pumpkins.