My First Halloween Party - Lighting Questions

First, Congrats on your first party. As an old hand at PARTIES in general let me give you my .02

How do I create the spooky feeling?

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This can be accomplished in many different ways but sound and light go along way.

I have black and orange bulbs. Should I put 2 in each light set and leave the other two out? What about for the food room?

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I am a HUGE fan of GREEN. I replace most of the bulbs in the house with GREEN and a few RED. Black light only works well with an "effect" for it to play off of and the standard bulbs that are black light get VERY HOT and do not work as well as some of the long bulb types. The FOOD room may need a little extra light but if you are making creepy food items it will add to the effect to have bad lighting.

I purchased a fog machine that I was thinking about using indoors. Any experience with the best way to use it? Should I use it on the patio?

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Most folks will tell you fog machines are NOT an indoor item and I would agree, especially with the larger ones. I also have a small one I do use inside but its manual as well so I only set it off anytime I walk by.

Where do I place the strobe light? Behind a white sheet? On the ceiling?

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I have tried different locations. This year it will be a lamp adjacent to my " butcher table" . The best locations can be hallways were you can creep things up a bit and folks feel a little disoriented but will not trip over furniture. If its adjustable like one of mine is play with the setting and see what you think before your guest arrive.

I'm thinking of also hanging spider webs and creepy cloth from the ceiling for a old, haunted effect.

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Spider webs are a great standard as well as the creepy cloth. Make sure the webbing will not get snagged on people and not get into the food. The cloth can also be used to cover tables and lamps.

Bottom line is there is a LOT of stuff on this forum and people with great ideas. You can even get some free SOUNDS just by asking. I hope I have been of some help and post after your party and tell us how it went.

My absolute favorite lighting are these blue spiral CFLs that you can get at the big box hardware stores like Home Depot or Lowes. They bathe the room in an eery glow. And if you print pictures in bright white paper, it gives off a glow, similar to a black light. This would be followed by green and red light bulbs. I'm not happy with orange or black light bulbs. They just don't give off enough color.

Any of the Spirit Halloween spotlights are fantastic. They are pricier--$19.99. I've picked up green, red and blue of those versions They are total mood setters.

If you have any picture frames around the house, I would suggest printing out some interesting creepy photos and taping on top of the glass. The more "normal" stuff you can hide, the better for your party. If you scroll down my Pinterest board, there's tons of horror art as well as party ideas. http://www.pinterest.com/zim2/

I second Dawnski's recommendation, although I generally use red and orange. I've never tried blue, but I'll keep that in mind next year! I have a ceiling fans with four light bulbs in my living room and dining room. I take out all four bulbs, and replace 3-4 with red in the living room and 4 of orange in the dining room. I find with that many bulbs burning, they give off enough light so you can see easily, but the room is dim and spooky. I also hang cheesecloth "spiderwebs" off the ceiling fan - it really adds atmosphere. For extra lighting in the dining room, I also have purple string lights on the windows.

My kitchen has a light fixture with a cover, so switching out bulbs is a big pain. So I took red lace fabric, folded it a bunch of times (so it was a little thick, then used tacks to attach it to the ceiling over the light. It dims the lighting a little, but it's still fairly bright (good for a food room). I just have to make sure the fabric is hanging low, so it's not touching the hot light.

As someone who hosts an annual party but doesn't do a home haunt, I'm a BIG believer in lighting as a major and under-appreciated means of establishing a mood for a party.

Dawnski nailed it with the comments about the indoor CFL lights at Lowe's. I've got an absolute ton of them.

I go crazy with lighting. Inside the house, I switch out many of the downstairs lamps with the orange bulbs, but also complement that with red bulbs in certain places near the foyer and in side rooms. Our home layout is fairly wide open, so I change out the upstairs hall lights to red bulbs and keep them on throughout the party (it opens up to below). And one of my son's rooms has a side closet that has two very small square windows--red lighting in that room glows outside and is a nice effect.

Also, I use a lot of black light in certain locations. We have fluorescent bulbs underneath our kitchen cabinets, so I swap those for black lights that I ordered online...they are a GREAT effect for illuminating the bar area and countertops.

All in all, I have about 25 total bulbs of a variety of types that I swap out through the season. It's a huge ambiance boost for the party and just in general throughout the Halloween period.

I'd recommend everyone experiment though with what colors work best for your space and given your wall colors, open vs confined spaces, big vs small rooms. You really have to play around with it sometimes to get the right "fit" with lighting.