[hopelesslyinsane]

So, the long story short is that my boyfriend and I had to move in with his parents after our landlord unexpectedly sold our house out from underneath us. We're talking to a lawyer but that's not the point of this post. We're gonna be here for at least a few more months and my not mother-in-law loves Halloween almost as much as I do so she's given me permission to decorate however I want.

The porch is easy, probably going to put my clothesline spiderwebs up and tuck my web-wrapped skellie in one of them. (I have my previous year decorations in an album if you'd like to see what I'm working with.)

The problem: They have basically no yard and it's mostly walkway to get to the porch. What they DO have is a flat, long, skinny gravel driveway.

I have the idea right now to turn the driveway into a cemetery but I wouldn't be able decorate it until Halloween day. I've searched this forum and I'm browsing pinterest and didn't find much, mainly one other post but it had people setting up fire pits and tents for ToT.

Do you do all or most of your outdoor decorating on Halloween day? Does anyone focus on decorating your driveway? Do you have ToTs walk down your driveway to get their candy? Is there something I haven't thought of?

Open to all and any advice!

 

[pumpkinpie]

Here's some of my favorites for garages.

and if you have access to the garage u could do a little walk through

 

[FeistierErmine]

The main difficulty with decorating a driveway is going to be anchoring things. You'll probably want to focus on things that can stand without assistance, or set aside some time beforehand to built stands and attach things.

A foam headstone cemetery could work if you get some planks, and attach rows of stones to them. Just stow them somewhere until Halloween, and then lay out the planks on the day. Actually that sounds really handy for doing it in the yard too. I may steal this idea from myself

 

[Deaths Reach]

Sounds like an industrial zombie/mutant situation to me!

 

[Gym Whourlfeld]

I would build half of an old car, like a Model "A" Ford sticking out of the driveway, then have some spooky skellies or gangsters in the car. A few boards and cardboard could do it, paint it to make it slightly more weather -proof. If this idea is too much work, maybe the old car could be a convertible?
"The Earth itself, reeched-up these evil characters for Halloween! (and what's left of their car! )

 

[Ghost of Spookie]

I and a lot of other people on here set up Halloween day. Ends up being a full day for me usually. I've found a good thing to do is a test run before hand with prop positioning and lighting at night. You can set up, take photos of your setup to refer to later, and I've always had diagrams of what I'm going to do in addition. Label stuff on it so you don't forget to use that thing that you wanted to use (who hasn't left something in the garage and only realized it after halloween?).

Saw your photos from last year (loved the red lit windows, very creepy) and looks like you have some nice cemetery props that would be perfect for a long driveway. That way the kids get to walk by all the gravestones. Your not-MIL sounds great BTW. I like the idea of the gravel driveway. Can already hear in my mind the sound of little feet crunching the gravel with their feet. Could add to the eerie experience.

Will people need to access the driveway that day? Could see that being an issue otherwise. Do you have a garage door to decorate? Assume running a power cord might be difficult to do in which case do you have enough battery-equipped lighting devices to light your tombstones with? If you have battery lighting (tea lights, candles, lanterns, etc) with timers on them already (usually 5 hours on/19 hours off), set those aside from things that need attention on Halloween night and turn them on the night before so they will automatically come on Halloween night when you want them to (of course make sure to turn them on at the right hour the night before LOL). Anything you can do ahead of time like timed lighting will make your set up easier Halloween day. Of course have fresh batteries for everything.

There are a number of driveway setup photos I've seen on the forum. Some very clever ones too. Some people will use car tents and such, others just their driveway area with nothing overhead. I've seen cars that need to be parked in the driveway used as well. Some with legs sticking out after being run over, some with props inside them (will go this route when we do our Monster Movie DriveIn theme). This year if everything goes well I'm hoping to use one "lane" of our 2-car cement driveway to create a haunted submarine experience that kids will enter at one end near the street and then exit near a walkway to our house where we'll have more decor and the treats. Keeping fingers crossed that my idea using the several halloween arches I have can become the framework for the sub, black plastic sheeting for the sub's outer skin. Same idea could easily become a tunnel or cave.

 

[Jenn&MattFromPA]

I like the red windows in your album too! So, one thing you could consider for a gravel driveway - consider buying cheap plywood or finding some scrap wood. Cut them into panels or whatever sizes work for you to lay on the gravel, and then you can attach some of your props to the plywood for extra stability. You can cover the plywood with creepy cloth, leaves, a burlap "fake grave", etc.

We do have a front yard & last year we had ToTers walk up our driveway for the first time to get to our front door. We used to just make a path from the street through our yard, but as we've gotten more stuff, we've used up the yard space. We made two columns for the end of the driveway, and then I used dollar store buckets, some great stuff foam & bamboo sticks to make poles that I attached light strands to. I sort of outlined a path with the lights that we wanted people to walk up. You can see the buckets along the right side of our driveway in this photo - black buckets with skulls in them & lights strung from post to post.

We set up our cemetery stuff prior to Halloween, but we put up A LOT only the day of Halloween. It's pretty tiring but what helps us is to have a clear layout of what we're doing. Since we don't tweak our layout TOO much anymore, we don't draw it out as much as we used to, but for you, even an ugly, dirty little sketch on paper would probably help get everyone on the same page so that they know what to do to help.

Another option for your headstones - you could use serious glue to glue a small pvc plumbing tube to the back of each of your headstones. Then cut up some wire hangers & force them into straight lines. Stick one end of the wire hanger into the dirt of the gravel driveway & maybe hammer down a bit for stability. Then slide the pvc tube of the headstone over the wire to secure it.

 

[Rigormortor]

At the beginning of the driveway you can set up 2 pillars and a cemetery arch. I made my arch out of PVC and have painted it black.
I bought 12" letters from a hobby story and painted them black and orange. My arch is big at 12 feet tall and 6 feet wide, you can
make it any size you want and use PVC 1 inch. When your done take it apart and store it for next halloween. Pillars I used cardboard
boxes from the post office. I put foam on the side and painted it all.

 

[hopelesslyinsane]

Thanks so much everyone!

A few things: I already have PVC attached to the back of my tombstones, that's how I was able to stake them in our old yard that was very steep. It took maybe 30 minutes to do and that was mostly because I was crawling all over the yard. I used some kind of welding rod that was sitting in the garage to attach them to the ground. It does the job.

As much as I'd love to do a walk through haunt or even just set up inside the garage, 75% of the things I own are currently taking up a lot of room in the garage (we weren't expecting to have to move as quickly as we did) as well as my not Father-in-law's 1934 Plymouth. But I do love the idea of maybe pulling the antique car out of the garage and having a Skellie "driving". The only problem with blocking access to the driveway is that it has a wheelchair ramp attached to it as my not FIL is wheelchair bound for the most part. He doesn't leave the house every day but I don't want to purposely keep him trapped. I'll have to talk to him about it. My original idea for that was to take a broken wheelchair, put a skellie on it, and position it in the middle of the ramp.

I think I need to dig out my tombstones and do a trial run of how long it takes to set up. I also need to figure out my lighting. I love the idea of building posts out of postal boxes! I was thinking of buying a cheap garden arch from Lowes as the entrance to the cemetery.

Thanks again! I'll keep searching the forum but I think I have a good starting point. You guys are awesome!

 

[hopelesslyinsane]

An Update: Earlier this evening my mother-in-law passed away. She'd been very sick the past few weeks and it finally took its toll. I'm still going to decorate but I figured since most of you were kind enough to give me advice that I should tell you.

 

[Impy]

An Update: Earlier this evening my mother-in-law passed away. She'd been very sick the past few weeks and it finally took its toll. I'm still going to decorate but I figured since most of you were kind enough to give me advice that I should tell you.

I'm so sorry.

 

[Glitterati]

I am so sorry for your loss and for your boyfriend's loss.

 

[pumpkinpie]

I'm so sorry for your loss...I'm just glad that your unexpected circumstances brought you both home. I'm sure his dad will appreciate the help and distraction keeping you all in my prayers ((hugs))

 

[printersdevil]

I am so sorry to hear of your loss. Hopefully, you and the BF will be a comfort to his dad during this diffcult time.

 

[dbruner]

I'm so sorry.