[MC HauntDreams]

So, the first parts of our taking-it-to-a-whole-new-level-inspired-by-HF decorations are starting to come together.
We want the small entry area outside our front door to be castle inspired and are making faux-stone wall panels.
M salvaged bunches of 6"x6"x48" styrofoam blocks from work. (Score!) We cut them into thinner pieces to do these walls. M figured out how to set my old BL doorbell in so that anyone pushing it will ring our actual doorbell too! So excited!!!!
Still a lot of work to do. Carving, finishing, etc. But I'm already loving it:

 

[DaveintheGrave]

Great idea! It's looking terrific so far!

 

[Ghost of Spookie]

I saw this last night when I was surfing the forum while out for dinner. Wanted to come back and say I thought this looked great.

So I see some wooden anchoring strips along the wall. I'm really curious how you are getting everything to stay in place. My husband would kill me if I put holes in our stucco and the only thing that sticks to rough stucco is spider webbing. I've always wanted to come up with a way to do essentially what you are doing. Can you share more pics and tips?

Are you planning hanging anything from above? I really want to suspend one of those haunted chandeliers from our porch ceiling and will probably go with haunted hotel lobby this year. We do have a covered junction box that was installed by our developer for an outdoor fan I might be able to take the cover off of and use but otherwise I'm stumped. Our L-shaped covered porch is a great set up area but not particularly conducive to hanging or mounting things. We have several French-country style wooden pillars with corbels on the outside perimeter of the covered area that I can potentially work with but the interior walls at the house are just plain stucco. From your photos you look like you have similar enough challenges I'm sure I can learn from what you do. Thanks for sharing and can't wait to see how your castle comes along.

 

[MC HauntDreams]

Ok, GOS, you asked for it! Hopefully this will make sense. Gonna start with some diagrams..

 

[MC HauntDreams]

My space is basically a square. 2 sides stucco walls over concrete floor, 2 sides arch topped openings. 1 arch faces planting bed and 1 goes over the front walkway. M and I agreed that we didn't want holes in stucco but small screws into soffit or the ceiling of entry were ok.
(If you want to do this, hopefully you like Tetris!!!)
Wall "A" is the one already shown and that is finished (build-wise.) It is made of 3 panels:
Panel A (green) goes just beyond the concrete floor by just a bit, stopping before the electrical box. The top of the left side screws to the soffit and the bottom tucks into the mulch just a bit. Top of the right side has a metal tab that goes behind the panel above it.
Panel B (blue) also has a small metal tab at the top to tuck behind panel above and at the bottom it just sets on concrete. Only extra to hold it in place is the tight fit of foam at the corner.
Panel C (lavender) sits in front of 2 metal tabs and on top of door frame. The foam is made for a tight fit and only other support (than door frame) is 2 small screws to soffit at top.

 

[MC HauntDreams]

Wall "B" is still under construction, but it has the added challenge of being the home of our house numbers. (Which we want to leave exposed.) Luckily, they stand out from the wall a few inches, so the foam blocks will run from either side up behind them.
Panel D (red) will sink into the mulch at the bottom and screw to the soffit at the top of the left side. The right side will match to the bottom of the panel above and a small metal bracket will allow us to screw the 2 wooden strips together.
Panel E (yellow) will screw to the soffit at 2 points and the bottom of the right side will rest on the roof overhang there. Again bottom of left side will sit on top of the right edge of panel below.
Wall "C" is the inside of the column and the top leads into the arch. So the panel for that side only goes up to the bottom of the arch. We attached ropes to the back side of the wooden strips and the panel will sit on top of the concrete; ropes pulled around the column and tied to hold it in place. On the outside of the column (which can be seen from the street), we will hide the ropes by mounting a hanging style reaper! This panel will also feature a lighted sconce that we are making out of a piece of Walmart plastic Halloween fence!

Wall "D" is probably the wall that would help you the most GOS and we aren't sure we will have enough foam to make it. If we do, the plan is to make the wood frame so it rests on the concrete floor and is again anchored by just two small screws into the ceiling. (The screws can be super small as they dont have to support weight, just prevent tipping out.) If the panel did try to swing from the wall at the bottom, my plan was add either a small piece of actual stone (doorstop like) or use wooden shims to wedge it into place more firmly.

 

[MC HauntDreams]

One other note, before we agreed to the small screws into the ceiling, my other plan was to use shower curtain rods at the top to brace the sections without attachments of any kind.

I'll post more pics as sections are finished.

Almost forgot, yes, I will be hanging something in center... Ihave wrought iron scroll piece that I picked up at a junk store. M thinks we can hang it from ceiling with chains connected to existing (simple) light fixture above. Using one of those adapters to turn a light socket into a outlet and running purple string lights all over it to make a Halloween worthy chandelier. May also run creepy cloth from top to the castle walls. Either attached at outer edges with Tpins or to those shower rods I collected.

 

[Defenestrator]

This is a fun notion, and you seem to be off to a great start...I'll be watching for updates with interest!

 

[MC HauntDreams]

2 more walls built. (Pic with just those 2 walls below.) All 3 are now carved and ready for painting.
Thinking that we will skip wall "D" in diagram. I just don't think it will make enough impact to balance the time/effort.
At night under spooky lighting, cover that wall with creepy cloth and cobwebs etc and no one will notice there's not stone on it... Right?

 

[Ghost of Spookie]

One other note, before we agreed to the small screws into the ceiling, my other plan was to use shower curtain rods at the top to brace the sections without attachments of any kind.

I'll post more pics as sections are finished.

Almost forgot, yes, I will be hanging something in center... Ihave wrought iron scroll piece that I picked up at a junk store. M thinks we can hang it from ceiling with chains connected to existing (simple) light fixture above. Using one of those adapters to turn a light socket into a outlet and running purple string lights all over it to make a Halloween worthy chandelier. May also run creepy cloth from top to the castle walls. Either attached at outer edges with Tpins or to those shower rods I collected.

Very interesting. I don't have sofits in this porch area unfortunately to even consider but do have the wood columns to use as I mentioned. And I also thought of using a tension shower rod or other wood or pvc pieces to effectively wedge into a support of some kind near the ceiling. Thank you for sharing your work and I'm going to be following your thread closely.

The house number panel came out really well. At first I didn't realize the bricks I saw were your foam panels. LOL.

 

[MC HauntDreams]

The house number panel came out really well. At first I didn't realize the bricks I saw were your foam panels. LOL.

Thank you. After a VERY long day getting all the pieces to fit, that is the greatest compliment! M and I joked that we passed our faux-stone masonry test.
I am excited to see it what it will look like painted!

C

 

[fennyann]

Wow, this is going to look great! Fantastic!

 

[MC HauntDreams]

More progress this weekend. First 3 walls are aged/painted/etc. (Thank you to Terra for all her tutorials on tombstone finishing.)
Constructed a small panel for right side wall. That will get painted this week. It's just matches the column across from it -area between that and door wall corner will get covered by creepy cloth etc.
Still have spooky faux chandelier to hang and sconces (made from Halloween plastic fence) to mount on either side inside the entry wall.

 

[Hilda]

Wow!! This is beautiful!!

 

[CassintheUK]

Love that! Awesome idea and job!

 

[MC HauntDreams]

Thank you Hilda and CassintheUK. I forgot to put up a finished pic. Will have to do that because it looked so good on THE night.
Good enough that we are expanding this year - gothic window cover, more stone panels near the garage, and towers on the roof. Can't wait.

 

[printersdevil]

Yes, please show us some more pics.

 

[MC HauntDreams]

Here are 2 of the pics from Halloween night. In one, you can kind of see the purple Halloween light wrapped wrought iron chandelier.



Cant wait to do more castle parts this year.

 

[MC HauntDreams]

2014 additions

The castle facade is expanding a lot this year. Tower tops, gothic window surround, and more. Here's what we got up today. And that's M peeking over the edge. . More to put up tomorrow. *excited*

 

[Hilda]

Oh wow! That looks like so much fun!!!!