Of course you have to have room to store these things you keep. I like Halloween, but I am not going to save something that I have to store in a living area or that is going to keep my garage unusable during the rest of the year. So you might say I am a responsible packrat.

Here are a couple items that I have kept over the years specifically to use for Halloween:

Old china cabinet:

This is a china cabinet my wife an I bought for $100 when we lived in an appartment in Philadelphia. We had a lot of china from our wedding and needed somewhere to store it. It came back with us to Pittsburgh and we used it while we rented an appartment. Then when we bought our house we eventually bought a new dining room set and this was going to go out to the curb. But I was a little lazy and the next year it became part of our Halloween haunt.

Old dining room table:

Again, when we had our apparetment in Philly we needed a table. We actually bought it in Wheeling, WV where my wife is from and threw it in the U-Haul the day we moved her out there after college. It also came back with us and got stored when we bought that new dining room set. We bought it for $50 from a second hand furniture store and the legs come off to make storage easy. It is pretty beat up but PERFECT for Halloween!

Old panel boards:

When we bought our new house I needed something to keep me busy on the weekends. The game room had these hideous white panels on the wall and I decided to redo the walls because there was no insulation behind the walls. These panels were the walls from the first remodel. I say the first remodel because they were so flimsy that it just did not work out. Two years later I tore them off and put up some really solid pine planking. These were stashed because I was going to use them to wall the laundryroom which was just cinderblock wall. Unfortunately, over the years of storage they have gotten pretty beaten up and not suitable for that purpose. I have never really used them to wall up garage on Halloween but this year they are going to get used to hide all the walls, electrical boxes, tools, etc. on the walls.

Old dining room chair:

I made my wife a deal when we got rid of the old dining room set in that I would keep just one chair because it was actually useable. The other five where just plain junk. That chair, which used to be used for guests is now part of our yearly haunt.

Old screen door:

This is the old screen door that was on the garage door entry to the house when we moved in. I took it off to fit our washer and dryer inside and never put it back on. It has been a part of our garage haunt every year serving one purpose or another. It looks old, because I think it is from when the house was built in the 50’s so that helps me keep it around.

But didn’t Halloween just come by a couple days ago? Yes, it did. So why on Earth would I suggest starting to plan your next year’s haunt now?

Simple. If you don’t start planning now how you are going to lay out your own haunted house for next year you probably won’t do it at all. You might even get in a rut and do the exact same thing and the kiddies will know exactly what to expect. Haunts are not as spooky when people know what to expect. And what is worse is you will probably put off starting to think about it until next October and be rushing around to get your plans done. Planning now however means that you are going to get ahead of the curve.

How about this for a reason to start planning now? You know all those fly by night, up for six weeks and then gone costume and prop stores? Well, they are liquidating their stock to make as much money as they can. A lot of these stores are completely torn apart by the end of business on November 1st. So if you are looking for bargains on props the first couple days right after Halloween is the time to get just that. You can stretch your dollars a lot further when things are 40-75% off.

But aside from saving money, anyone that has ever done a house haunt knows that you do have to really think about what you are doing. You have a finite amount of space and probably more props than you know what to do with. Also starting to plan now, in those first couple days after Halloween, gives you a leg up by making you think twice about pitching some of that old junk in your basement (i.e. new potential props). You would be surprised how quick and easy setting up a house haunt is when you have a bunch of old junk you’ve saved that looks like it belongs in a haunted house.

But if you are not thinking about how to use that junk in your own house haunt I guarantee you that you will be kicking yourself later saying, “AH! I should have saved that!” On that same note, starting now gives you a whole year to look for things other people are throwing away or selling cheap at places like flea markets too.

Now is the time to re-evaluate what you did this year while it is fresh in your mind, just like the professional haunted houses do. If you wait until July next year, your memory is going to be a little bit fuzzier and you will forget some things that really made the Trick or Treaters scream and panic. In addition, as you are taking your props down and putting them into storage, anything that was damaged and either needs repair or needs replaced will be at the top of your mind. Don’t put anything that is damaged away without fixing it first!

Also if you are into building your own props then why not start drawing up the plans now and get to building them early? Wait until the week before Halloween next year and there is a good chance you won’t get to it or will not have it working and looking the way you want it to look and work.

Now is also the time when everyone that did a house haunt is blogging about what they did! Cruise the internet looking for ideas. You can also start squirreling away money for next year to buy props that you cannot afford right now.

If you put the time and effort into doing something to set your home apart from the others on the block where people are just giving out candy by making your house into a real haunted attraction then really put the effort into it! It doesn’t take that much time to think about how to do it better next year if you start now.