Video Trailer

In action, ready for trick or treaters

Front door ready for "Trick or Treaters"

Sneak Peak

    Fully lit and dressed. Soon to come is the actual install. Look for the teaser trailer to follow.

The Preview

   Now that the decor and electrical is complete, it's time to show it all together "lights on"- at least in my garage. The final posts will have it installed in the doorway and/or window.

All Decorated Up

    As stated before, I purchased two different photos to hang on the wall. For budget purposes I had to suffice with commercial Halloween decor. Also, perhaps I just needed to get over the whole fully realistic decor I had planned. It is supposed to be fun right? The lit canvas is definitely fun and as I said I purchased it from Cracker Barrel Old Country Store. The lenticular portrait of the children is for sale from many vendors across eBay. This may be particularly too frightening for little ones.

     Now to enhance the sceni. I decided to use an old sewing table to display period or period looking pieces.  The wall looked a little plain without anything in front of it. Here are the items I gathered.

 The metal horse, silver platter with cups and green felt photo frame came from the local good will for practically nothing. An antique photo album book antique is stacked atop a vintage math book, both of which are from a local antique store. The bronze candle holder came from the same store. The photo in the frame is from the album on the table. Lastly, a somewhat corny "Antique" radio prop from Lowes. It was just too fun to resist. It livens the scene up when it plays some "dark" symphony music. It also has an animated skull that illuminates a random color upon each play. It can either be tripped by motion or set to play continually.

Electrical

     So I'm not going to discuss specific electrical wiring and diagrams. I am not a formally trained electrician but I have years of experience in microelectronics hobbies as well as DIY projects at home. It may be a liability issue to go into specifics. What I can say is that I wired each light to a separate switch and that switch is connected to a standard lamp cord with a polarized plug. The back will be covered with similar plywood used in the front for safety with an access panel.

Lights, trim, action...

   
     At this point I undertook mounting the sconces as planned and practiced. I scored the paper in a cross shape for the wiring whole and simply used a drill bit to poke open the two zip-tie holes. They both went on as planned. I definitely needed a win after my wallpaper defeat.

     Now, on to the trim. I decided not only to add molding to the sides but also to the top. A rosette/corner block would make installation and cuts easier by eliminating having to miter. I cut some of the trim and made sure it fit well. At this point you will notice I had already installed the top (chair rail) and bottom (base board) molding.

     I added a spooky photo to see how it all came together. The photo is pretty tacky but I couldn't resist. It is pretty fun. The canvas has build in LED's which make the prints candles/candelabras glow. You can even have it play sound and reach to motion. I found this at Cracker Barrel one Sunday a few weeks ago. I know, I know. I said I would leave the cheesy stuff out and go for something more classic. I looked at some 19th century portraits and even the reproductions were outrageously priced. So I had to make a compromise. I did however find a creepy 19th century plastic portrait reproduction of two toddlers that has a lenticular function to make the faces look evil from different vantage points. I'm not sure what one I will go with in the end. Most lightly the lit canvas because of the dark setting.

Wallpapering

     The custom wallpaper from Etsy was going on great. I waited about three weeks for order processing, printing and shipping. I ordered four rolls with the idea of it being overkill.

     Piece number one went on great. This wallpaper had its own paste backing so it was basically a dip in water, smooth out and wash deal. I had a wallpaper smoothing tool from installing border in a previous home. A wet sponge cleaned up the paste that squeegeed out. You will notice that I simply covered the holes I made for the sconces. Some easy exacto knife cuts would suffice later during installation. So far so good.

    I ordered four rolls of this wallpaper didn't I? Maybe I only ordered four yards. I checked my order and I don't know how I came up short. I don't really want to blame the merchant here, but from what I can tell, I wasn't shipped enough. Ugh. This is not good. I don't have time to wait another three weeks for one roll of paper. This would ultimately lead to fudge number two, or three depending on how you count it.

   So an easy fix would be to add some trim. The problem was, that eight inch gap is way too wide for trim. I had about a foot of wallpaper left, leaving me with an option I was not too happy about. To narrow the gap I could simple slice pieces from the remnants. With a pattern this large, a one foot section would perfectly match. The rest would have to be cut to look like they match. This would be my biggest upset in this project. Lesson learned.

     Not great, not horrible, but I got the paper close enough to the edge that finishing it off with trim would be a simple fix from this point on. Not a budget friendly fix, but one none-the-less.

Preparing how to affix the sconces

    As you may remember I was a little taken aback when the sconces arrived and I examined the back and found no obvious way to mount these at least semi-permanently to the wall. A lot of DIY web surfing didn't come up with anything for this type of construction. I took to a website that offered a free "ask an electrician" feature. After discussing the lighting and showing the electrician some detailed photos he basically admitted to being stumped as referred me to find someone that works with and installs and repairs vintage lighting. I thought, "good luck with finding someone like that" and decided I needed to come up with some unconventional rigging.
     Since this project is only semi-permanent in nature I knew I could fudge this a little. What I came up with? Zip-ties. Yes. You heard me right. So I came up with a method of using them and below you will see the mounting holes I drilled to mount it all.

 
   The larger hole is for the wiring and the two smaller holes are for the zip-ties exclusively. Because the horizontal brace on the back of the sconce (the only piece resembling mounting hardware) was smooth, I imagined the zip-ties would easily slide. This why I chose two zip-ties to run through the small hole, the brace and back through the larger electrical hole. In addition, I crisscrossed the ties for added stability. In a trial run, I mounted a sconce as below. It held well enough.

Wainscoting and prep

   As stated before I wanted the look of wainscoting at the base of the wall. When I was planning the dimensions of the entire wall I had revealed my width to be four-feet based on a standard. I found a four-foot wide panel of "wainscoting" that would have the perfect look. I also chose a trim that would work for both the baseboard and the chair rail (nobody is going to pay that close attention anyways). Using an 8-foot general purchase trim was economical and easy since I just needed to cut it in half.

     I decided it best to lay the wallpaper before installing the trim, that way any defects in cutting could be hidden under the trim. I made an educated guess that the surface of the plywood would need to be prepared before wallpaper was to be applied. I did some research and found a type of paint primer ideal for this situation. So next, I obviously primed the surface.

    Then I went on to paint the trim and the wainscoting. I bought a sample size of an antique white that looked appropriate. It was a "creamier" color that toned down the bright white that didn't look antique at all.

Debackle of the plywood

Poor Planning and Improvisation

 

    I already mentioned that my first big goof was soon to be revealed. That goof is specifically related to the plywood. Let's revisit the photo of the first cut of plywood being laid.

What a great fit. Right?

    Perfect fit right? Edge to edge on all four sides. It was a breeze to attach. Time to put the second piece of paneling on. I present 'illustration' number two.

Oh crap moment

    There goes properly planning ahead. What was I thinking? Choosing to cut the whole 4x8 sheet of plywood didn't help. I'm sure I could've found a way to get it home in one piece by borrowing a vehicle, but I know myself well enough that if I have motivation to get something done, I better find a way to do it right there and then. Stalling the momentum will lead me to the downward spiral of procrastination- something I cannot afford with a due-date of Halloween approaching and a work schedule becoming more demanding. But the sag from no support and no place to attach the plywood properly beyond the sides would have been an issue regardless.
     If memory serves me right, I believe I just added the two horizontal braces based on eyeballing equal distances. I never even factored in the mounting of each panel. Believe it or not it is mere coincidence that the first panel was edge-to-edge flush with the framing. Not so much for the second panel. Now I considered unscrewing the horizontal braces and moving them, but decided to take another route for two reasons (at least). One, I had already fastened the first panel with finishing nails. Don't worry, I'm not going to get into a nail vs. screw rant again; But face it- there is no pulling those nails without tearing up that board. Reason two- the adjustment I was considering would involve each panel sharing half of the less than the 2" (Remember my amateur amigos, a final sawed 2x4 is not quite, well, two by four?) side of the board. That is not nearly enough room, in my novice opinion, to drive a finishing nail without splitting wood, nonetheless the much needed support the board could gain with a modest increase in contact surface.


    So we've already covered the poor planning. Onto improvising. Two solutions need to be concocted here. The bowing needs to be solved and there needs to be more contact space for support and proper fastening. See photos below.

 Two different arrangements for the central supports to prevent bowing

     I started with the even cross arrangement (by using the extra 2x4 I bought just in case. One point back for planning ahead and avoiding another trip to Lowe's). I lined it up to make sure I made some decent cuts that were good and flush. Success! Is it sad that I am excited that I've made so many good cuts? (on the 2x4's. Let's not talk about the plywood) Then something dawned on me. It's embarrassing that I cannot even remember what the heck it was, but I came up with a reason to slightly stagger the middle supports. I want to say it had something to do with the way I was going to wire the electrical. Perhaps as I keep writing these blog posts it will come to me. Regardless, I went with the staggered supports. Recall that this blog is also a retrospective of work that has already been done weeks ago. My plan is to align the finishing touches and the end of the blog at a temporal concurrence.  

   Additional supports had to be made for properly fastening the remaining plywood panels. See photos below.

Panels attached with finishing nails on the edge framing only

Some added support and contact pieces

     Notice something in the first photo with all the plywood pieces arranged? The 'top' piece is actually cut in half as well, leaving a seam. Not a big seam, but one that needed to be corrected and braced. I found some strips of thin wood lying around the garage and gorilla-glued them on and made the seam flush and stable. The other support pieces were put-in as you can see in two different orientations. This was done specifically to mount the dual power switch directly in the center as well as allow and easier drill hole for electrical wiring to be run down on the left side. 

 

Temporary Feet

     As a last note for this post, I added temporary feet to keep the wall upright. I used the rest of my 2x6 board cut into two, two-foot sections. Double screwed and with a near 6x6 contact area on each side, the approximate 7-foot tall wall is rather stable. It can be bumped and may wobble slightly but you'd have to push it with vigorous force to knock it over. Again, these feet are temporary.

 

Let's build

   In this section I will let some of the photos speak for themselves construction wise. Again, this is not a tutorial, but a documentation of how I went about building this. Maybe I can give you some ideas on how to do something similar or better, and of course, lessons learned. I'll also have to throw in a bit of story telling oozing with self-serving nostalgia. This of course is more for me than the reader, but hey, it might add some character to this project blog.

Photo 1: Laying it all out

     Photo 1: Basically I laid down my three panels that I had cut from one 4x8 RevolutionPly poplar plywood. Remember... I couldn't fit the darn thing in my SUV or strap it to the roof? Bad choice, you'll see why later on. As you can see I have already measured the 2x4's, cut them down to the desired size and lined them up to make sure they fit snug-as-a-bug. I forgot to mention that I had also purchased a 4x6 board for the base. This time I was thinking ahead. The larger surface will allow for a more stable mount at the bottom. You will also notice that the shorter horizontal pieces were cut to fit between the vertical boards instead of on top. This I reasoned to be more stable, but again, I am nowhere near a carpenter or an engineer. Regardless, it worked out fine.

Photo 2: Basic Advice

     Photo 2 (and then some): I'm going to repeat a lot that I am not a craftsman, but I will have to say that growing up I helped my Dad and my Uncle work on a lot of projects. Yes, they actually let an 8 year old measure, hammer, screw and paint. I think I used the circular saw a few times (a few years older of course), but I wasn't a fan. That thing was loud as heck and scared the crap out of me.

     I helped build a deck, a porch, spackel, drywall, wallpapering (plus the dreaded wallpaper removing) and did a little roofing. Yes, roofing. It was the 80's, 'nuff said. I also did a lot of exterior house painting and scrapping- more scrapping than painting really. At least that's how I remember it because I hated the scrapping part. Gosh those glorified paint brushes with dull metal edges were miserable to use. I So the advice I picked up... "measure twice, cut once", always use a level and a square- then finally, always cut a little bit long; You can always take a little bit more off, but you definitely cannot add it back on. Thanks Dad!

Photo 3: Fastening and Supports

     Photo 3: A good three-inch high-strength wood screw was my choice for fastening all the ends and the supports that you can see I am adding to allow structural stability and well as provide a surface for fastening the plywood. I've had plenty of experience with nails and I have no idea why anyone uses them for joining 2x4's and such. Hammering them in is no where near as accurate (unless I suppose you have a nail gun) and the helical ridges of a screw must be more binding than a flush nail, right? When my wife and I had our house built three years ago I can tell you I didn't see very many straight nails in the framing. More like forty-five degree angles that poked out the sides of the boards. "Nice job guys..." I did a better job as an 8 year-old. I also used two screws for each joint, making sure to be dead-center and not too close to any edge of the board. I learned that lesson a long time ago... 'splitsky' goes the board, and that's no good. I can say that I fastened all the joints with no more than a couple millimeter cracks. Yeah me! But before I start tooting by own horn,  major fudge number one is approaching soon.

Photo 4: When to use a nail

     Photo 4: I've already stated my position on nails vs. screws, but that was mostly directed at joining framing and such. Finishing nails in my opinion are the most useful of all nails. (Maybe, I just made that up). I'd never use a screw in drywall to hang a photo- and no, I've never tried; I'm sure it doesn't end well. The one disadvantage of this poplar plywood that you can see is the grain. Anything too abrasive, dull or of significant girth and this stuff will split. This is my logical deduction, not my expert opinion. So a good, sharp small diameter finishing nail of about an inch length worked perfectly. I took the route of nailing the corners (again, dead center in the board and not near the edge. No 'splitsky' action here), then driving a nail at the estimated center, then a nail each at the halfway point of the corners and the center nail. Worked for me. Let me also add that I hammered each nail to almost flush and then searched for a nail-setter which I could not find (let's improvise), then went through my drill bits for my cordless to find a Philips-head bit that had a small flattened tip that closely matched the diameter of the nail head. This way I could drive the nail in flush without a big round hammer indentation- remember I need to wallpaper this thing and I want it to be smooth. Maybe common sense to a good craftsman, but not completely obvious to the weekend-project amateur.

  

Framing and facade

    The ideal size I determined for the dimensions was seven feet tall and four feet wide. A height of eight feet would've been the easiest because I am using a 4x8 'plywood' facing, but since my ceiling is eight foot, there would be no room for maneuvering, transporting and the doorways are obviously smaller. I did the framing in my dining room and made all the cuts in the garage or driveway. A lot of materials are precut in eight and foot foot sections. I just had to do a little more work on the vertical pieces.

    I looked at a lot of materials for the facade, lightweight being the key attribute. Foam boards would have been the lightest, but it definitely wasn't sturdy enough for the sconces and trim. I'm sure there would be some way to work that out but I'm also looking for simplicity.
    Additional attributes I was looking for were a smooth surface, strength, economy and something easy to cut. Traditional 'glued-chunk layered plywood' (Again, I'm not a carpenter so bear with my terminology) is heavy as heck and definitely not the smooth surface I was looking for. Smooth surface plywood that is glued in whole layers was just too darn heavy as well. Fiberboard lacked the strength once cut. Sheet-rock-- heavy, messy and a lot of work. There were probably 10 other materials I ruled out. My best fit was a 5mm RevolutionPly poplar plywood available for $13.88. It was stronger than it looked, relatively light (for wood) and super smooth. The smoothness would become important when wallpapering. Below is a photo of the product.

   Now I mentioned in the first post that I had some duh-moments and some dos and do-nots during the progress. Some fudging was needed. My duh-moment here was how the heck and I going to get this thing home. I have a full-size SUV but it definitely wouldn't fit in the back. A roof mount was near impossible because I can thank Jeep for not putting a single facet, opening or any other means of attachment to the roof-rails. Sure, I could go with the twine through the windows method that we've had to do with Christmas trees, but this board is so thin, slick and susceptible to wind it was neither practical or safe. What to do? Cut it in half. Luckily Lowe's offers free cuttings. After a discussion with the friendly employee about size and cuts, we determined it needed to be cut in thirds. He forewarned me that the thickness of the saw blade he used would not only shave length, but the boards won't be exactly the same size. I figured with the trim I was planning it wouldn't really matter. This choice turns out to cause quite a few issues and some more work, but we'll go over that fudging later. 

  

Initial structure

Building the frame:

     The basic frame was composed of 2x4's I purchased from Lowe's. The majority of my building materials came from Lowe's. This is not an endorsement, but when a building material store is literally 5 minutes from my house, it's my go-to. For framing, I would recommend at least five 2x4's at 8 foot lengths. You can always return uncut lengths you do not need. I would use this logic of over-purchasing for just about any aspect of this project regarding items that are returnable. It gets really annoying making multiple trips in the same day over just 'one' item you were short on.

     You may be tempted to save a few bucks on some 'el cheapo' boards but I would highly suggest using a more premium product. Not the premium flawless hardwood they sell in the back- a higher grade softwood will do. It will have less defects then the bargain cuts, and that will save you much frustration. Besides the ends having a clean and straight cut and not a lot of gnarly knots, the most important thing to look for in a good 2x4 is its straightness. In a big pile at the big-box store they all look relatively straight- not usually the case. I suggest the "golfer's putting line" method. Yes, I just made that up. Pick up a board and lay one end on the floor with the narrow (2") section facing up and bring the other end up to your eye. Look straight down the board. I guarantee the first one you pick up will have a bow to it. This is no good, trust me. Find the very straightest ones you can find- ones that you cannot visible see a bow. Now, I am not advocating that you grab a level from the tool department and get all technical. Just find five good ones and you are set. If you cannot find five after looking through a dozen, you need to look for a more premium cut.

TIP: A 2x4 is not really two by four inches. This is the approximate measurements of the board before it is sawed down to the end product. Never assume dimensions. Measure twice and cut once as they say. 

Sconces and Wallpaper

Sconces

     One of the key features I just had to have was electrified sconces that I could put flicker-flame bulbs in. I immediately took to Ebay. I was looking for something that definitely was not modern. The more vintage the better. An antique would be ideal. After about 30 minutes I struck gold and found a pair of beauties for a decent price- $35 with priority shipping.

     I was pleasantly surprised when these arrived in the mail. They've got a great patina and are definitely vintage. So vintage in fact, that there is no mounting hardware on the back. That challenge I will save for another post.

Wallpaper 

     The other key must have feature was a great vintage looking wallpaper. I quickly discovered you really can't go to a store anymore and buy wallpaper- at least in my neck of the woods. Lowe's and Home Depot stopped selling it years ago. I knew of a wallpaper place about an hours drive but I wasn't sure they were still even in business. Like anything these days, I took to the internet. I found some "Victorian" wallpaper but most had a modern take or were ridiculously expensive. Now this project wasn't meant to be bare-bones budget- design on a dime- but economy was definitely a factor.

     I eventually ended up on Etsy. Within five minutes, there it was- the perfect wallpaper. A distressed floral damask design that looked like it came right out of a run down 19th century maison. This is where I have to plug a great Etsy artist Teena Smolik and her family who make fantastic wallpaper and door knobs on her store Handcrafted360. Here is the design I chose. $7.25 a yard. Sold!

Concept

      So, before I started this project, I wanted to go in with a plan and a concept drawing. So, I'm an okay artist. I can sketch a decent landscape and I can sculpt some interesting figures, but as far as concept art... I can't doodle diddly. I came up with the idea of using interior design software to construct a draft model.
     My default place to find free and trial software has been www.download.com. It's not great and it's loaded with click-bait that could easily cause you to download something you did not intend. With this said, I recommend you exercise caution. If you can sketch something by hand or already have the software to do it, go that route first. What I found was a free trial for Panoplia which you can download on the site mentioned above. It wasn't the perfect match, but it was the best fit I could find. It has a load of built-in furnishings, decor etc. You can even view the concept in 3D from whatever camera angle you want. You just cannot import your own patterns, objects or re-size the textures/props. This really limited how authentic my concept could be compared to what I had visualized. That being said, it was a good start. Below is what I came up with, however uninspiring.

    As you can see, the photo mounted in the center is definitely not a 19th century portrait. There is no wood casing or wainscoting. The wallpaper is not what I planned on using and the sconces are candles, not electrified. Perhaps it was an unnecessary step but I thought I'd include this since I actually went through the effort of making the digital prototype. I'm not sure it even helped, but you've got to start somewhere. Next post I will go over the sconces and wallpaper I bought that I basically built the whole structure around.

Haunted Facade: The Beginning

So, autumn/fall has always been my favorite season. The crisp air- the changing leaves- apple cider and the clear starry nights. I had always embraced "autumn" and somewhat snubbed Halloween. Don't get me wrong, Halloween is pretty cool and all- well, some of it. The part that has always annoyed me and still does to this day is the tacky talking skeletons, black glitter cats, bats, rats and all that made in China crap. But there is a part of Halloween that feels more authentic. I relate it to Sleepy Hallow- Abandoned mansions, Gothic designs and real cemeteries. There is a sort of romantic, however disturbing vibe that speaks to me.

As I grew up and had kids, one of our favorite rides has been "The Haunted Mansion." Now, I know  what you are thinking. I thought you disliked all this tacky spooky crap? Yes, I do. But study the decor surrounding this attraction, ignore the goofy and cheesy spooks and you will see some "classy" aspects that scream Gothic and Victorian romanticism. Vintage books, lighting and furniture. Arts and Crafts construction in the woodworking. Floral and Damask wallpapering. Cast iron, bronze and brass hardware. Marble top tables and the list goes on.

So I took these features that I admired along with studying some Victorian home interiors and haunted mansion ideas from Pintrest and brainstormed a project. A lot of people came up with some decorative walls. Some designed entrances to their own personal haunted houses. But I wanted something different. What I came up with was a haunted house interior facade. Now imaging trick-or-treaters coming to your door and what they see is your flat screen TV and modern amenities. Not so cool. So what if when you open the door, what they see is that "Victorian" spooky interior right behind you? Not quite what they were expecting when knocking on the typical modern suburban home.

So I set out to build a faux wall that would act as a backdrop that would block the view of the boring suburban living room. So what I envisioned was a wall with some distressed damask wallpapering- some antique candle sconces that flickered with flame bulbs. Arts and Crafts woodworking with wainscoting, and then to top it off, a portrait hung "dead" center... pardon the pun, of come creepy 19th century human subject. Then to add a little flair, an antique console table with some period pieces that had the right amount of creep with a minimum amount of tack. Sounds simple right? Yeah, sure.

So this blog is basically my two-week escapade into woodworking, shopping, electrical wiring and a good amount of fudging to make this project come to life. I think you'll like it. It is also somewhat of a guide on how (and how not to) build such a project.

Let me add my disclaimer here. I am in no way a professional carpenter or electrician. I have basic skills and safety knowledge but please only use this Blog as a guide, not as a step-by-step tutorial. Feel free to copy my ideas, but please consult a professional on all aspects of construction.