Old-Time Haunted House Makeovers

I spent this past Halloween doing something I had wanted to do for a long time. I'd been wanting to visit an older area of Milwaukee along Lake Michigan to see how the houses there look for Halloween. Some of them are probably over 100 years old. Part of what I like so much about this area is that the houses are all so different from one another. Photographing these houses on actual Halloween day was even more fun than expected!

These houses looked beautiful, especially with the colors of the fall leaves around them. Many of them are painted in blue and purple tones, which look great next to the orange leaves and pumpkins. You guys know I like those color combinations. So it was hard in a way to do what I had planned. But... I really wanted to change these photos from color to variations of black and white or sepia tone. I left just the tiniest bit of color in some of these. 

Now, the reasons I wanted to do this were: 

#1 The bare bones of these old houses look so sharp when you take the color away. The details really show up. 

#2 The houses look downright haunted in black and white or sepia 

#3 I wanted to imagine what earlier photos of these places looked like. Someone was bound to have taken a photo of their home back before color photography. 

#4 I wanted to do a combination of black and white and sepia for that antique store feel. If you've paged through a box of old photos in an antique store, you know what I mean. I wanted this blog post to feel like you found a box of old haunted house photos in an antique store and are paging through them.

Many of these places don't look super haunted in color, although a few do. I'm sure a few of the home owners would look at these photos and say "When did my house get so spooky?"

This one turned out more antique looking than most of the others. In part, because of all those white sun spots, dust particles, etc.

There will be some little Halloween details in some of these. Check out the front porch. I'd thought that was an actual woman at first.

I really like the wood gingerbread details on some of these houses. The more I look at this house, the more I'm seeing different shapes that I didn't see before. 

This may be one of my favorite houses out of the bunch. 

To add to the vintage feel, some of those large paper/cardstock cut-out monster heads are in the windows. You know, the ones that are variations on the Universal type monsters. They're probably from the 1980s. Those decorations are really new next to the houses, but they're still technically "vintage". 

After I took these next two photos, I was thinking how the houses were somewhat similar. But the more I look, the more I see a lot of differences. The first one reminds me of a stacked layer-cake. 

This one has more rounded features. 

Here's a close view of the porch on the house above. I liked that little bit of orange left in the pumpkins. I've never learned how to leave one element of a photo in color while the rest is in black and white. So the subtle orange is just a bit of luck as I was slowly desaturating this one of color.

How cool is this skull in black and white? 

Love, love, love this one. Those long pieces of drift wood (?) at the bottom are almost reaching up on the house like a hand.

This is a closer view of the house above, but it looks different since I left a bit of blue. 

This is one of a few photos that actually gave me the creeps. There's something funny about being scared by a photo you took yourself. Some of these gave me the chills as I watched the color slip away. Maybe it's the tree? I feel like this house has a personality and is looking back at me. Does this feel like a confrontational house to you too?

This looks like a pretty nice-sized balcony to hang out on!

I was so concentrating on getting some extreme angles with the hill leading up to this house, that I didn't even observe much of the house itself. Now that I'm looking at it, this place is pretty much all windows along the front. I bet the light inside is outstanding! Imagine all the plants you could be growing by those windows. Neat shaped windows too. I like this house. What do you think? 1920s or 30s?

A toothy doorway and a bunch of rambunctious skeletons playing on the railing.

Great sunroom on the second story, hey? I bet that's a warm, welcoming place to hang out on a winter day.

I like the super subtle blend of color on this one. I think that gargoyle is cute, at least at first. The more I'm staring at it, the more he's looking alive. 

This house was already pretty much black and gray, so I barely had to take the color away. Because of that, the few colorful details show up. How about that fake political sign? "There is no Dana, only Zuul"

This is another one of those houses that feels like it's giving eye connection, especially from that middle room on the second story.

I have a feeling this place used to be a corner store, or maybe even a restaurant or tavern. It definitely wasn't all living space, as it appears to be now. It might seem strange after seeing the others, but this is one of the few that gives me the creeps. I'm going to have to look up the address and see if I can find the original history of this building. I'd like to see some early photos of it, because I can see a number of recent updates have been made, like the windows and trim.

Here's a friendly house, and another lucky photo where the pumpkins stayed a little orange.

You can't beat this. It practically comes with a face!

I was really happy with a lot of the angles I captured. Some of these places look pretty imposing with the tilt of my camera. 

This reminds me of an old schoolhouse, but maybe that little free library in front is influencing me.

This is one of my favorite photos. Just add a few pumpkins to the fence post tops and it's perfect. :)

Do you think a dentist lives here? We have the teeth, one skeleton holding a toothbrush, and the other holding a dental pick. I get a kick out of the eyes in the window.

I like the way the reflections of the trees showed up in the windows. Those reflections weren't even that noticeable before I shifted this to black and white. As I slowly moved the color out of this, the windows began to pop.

Nice fade from black to curtains in those bottom windows!

I'll end with another gingerbread feature. This scrolled detail was actually bright orange, the house was purple, and the trim/roof was black. It was a beautiful Halloween house year-round. 

So what do you guys think? Do you have any favorite houses here or do any of them look particularly haunted to you? The more I stared at some of these photos, the more I decided I didn't need to be staring that long. If you know what I mean! 👀 I was freaking myself out. 

Inspired Halloween displays from around town

I have been so looking forward to sharing these photos with you guys! For the past few months, I've been taking photos of Halloween decorations around the neighborhood. I'm using the word neighborhood loosely, because I mean throughout the whole town. I took so many that, believe it or not, I had to be choosey with this. I say, believe it or not, because I included a ton of photos here. 

Starting with my favorite new decoration out of the bunch! Have you guys seen one of these super large skeletons yet? It's so sassy. I saw one on someone's roof too. And how about that black-winged demon behind him? I think I've seen another of those this year too.

I love old-timey looking classic figures like this Dracula. I tried to include as many homemade decorations as I could here. You're going to see some creativity.

Like with these two! This yard had a bunch of skeletons. A tattered old umbrella and some dry flowers from the yard are perfect for these two. I noticed how the one in the shawl has her mouth open like "Aww! Flowers! You're so sweet!"

This same yard had a shrub that was transformed into a giant spider.

Some of these decorations look so sharp against the color of the wall behind them.

Do you recognize the type of children's playhouse that is now a haunted house? I thought 1428 looked familiar. I double checked and it's from A Nightmare on Elm Street. Not sure how I'd know that since I haven't seen the movie.

I thought this pic turned out strangely pretty with the wind moving her dress and the way the light was.

You might remember the wicked tree man from last year. I don't remember that accessory of his from before.

Just a simple creepy mask hanging from the bushes has an effect.

This yard had a bunch of decorations and all were of the creepy variety. There was this box you walked past that was about my height and had this figure inside that looked like Samara from The Ring. The timing was never right on the thing. The box would shake before I got to it and the figure would be sinking down and done mumbling by the time I got there. Then it would start up as soon as I walked past. I did see a guy around the side of the house who I suspect was trying to activate it as I went past but that did not time out well. I would have photographed that prop too but it was always flopped over by the time I stood in front of it.

The yard had a bunch of these homemade rotting zombie critters. This one is even losing his intestines. 

Now, this porch made me stop and stare! I have never seen someone decorate with their mask collection this way.

A close-up of a couple I liked best:

You might remember this giant skeleton from last year. This house is one of a handful around here that left the skeletons out year-round. Another house has dressed theirs for every holiday. The human-sized patriotic bikini on a giant skeleton is my favorite look so far. (That was for the 4th of July.) I was struck by the irony of this pic, because these people left him out all year and then when it is actually Halloween, you can't see him because the yard has overtaken him!

It was a fad there for a while (decades back) to see plastic geese dressed up around here. I haven't seen one in a while. On closer inspection, this looks more like a duck.

I'm going to call this next section "The Better Homes & Gardens Decorations" because they have that professional or magazine look. Things will be far from gruesome for a bit. I think the woman who lives in this house may have actually made these animals because I've never seen any like these.

How cute is this little guy peeking around the ferns? See his little sneaker?

And of course I love a good witch frog on some fancy pumpkins. This frog looks similar to some I saw at TJ Maxx earlier this year.

I love this display! It couldn't be more classic. It reminds me of magazines and books I looked at when I was a child.

This close-up view of the pumpkin scarecrow was my computer's wallpaper for a while. I'd been switching pics through October. 

There are a lot of window boxes on this side of town and people know how to use them.

See? Isn't this magazine level decorating? I mean, back when there were magazines in the 90s. Like Martha Stewart would do this sort of thing.

See the painted pie pan in the middle?

I thought this was a clever way to use a multi-level planter.

This pic was also my computer's wallpaper for about a week. The rope lights on the wheels light up at night. See the crow in the top hat? And the cat in the bike basket?

I noticed a number of people had decorated old bikes for the season. This lady puts lights on this bike for different holidays. I like it at Christmas. 

This bike is not so Better Homes & Gardens. 🤡 You know what's funny? After seeing all these old decorated bikes, I passed a house with an old bike in the yard and it took me a second to realize that some kid had just dumped his bike there. I was expecting it to be decorated. 

This is simple but so fun. I'm tucking this idea in my mind. You can probably get skeletons like this at Dollar Tree. I could have a good time posing them in different ways. I just wonder how they're attached to the house. I can't tell from the photo. You wouldn't want to damage the siding of a house. Any thoughts?

This guy goes all out each year. See, that's where I saw that other black-winged demon! 

He used this gremlin looking creature last year, but I don't remember it about to eat a clown. Or whatever is happening here. This figure is so creepy, especially at night. Should I know him from a movie or something?

This isn't the only Packers skeleton I've seen, but he's my favorite. Hmm... That's a short torso on that ghost on the left.

I think I've seen stands like this for sale in gardening stores. 

This skeleton is pretty when the lights go through its eyes.

You'll probably remember this lady's yard. She was the one who put all the creepy scarecrows along her fence. This ghostly tea party scene is new this year. Even the gazebo structure is new!

The next few will also be from her backyard.

I don't even have words for this! 

Except that the sign she has out year round finally makes sense! 

Here's one of her scarecrows. I'm including just one because they were kind of shadowy looking in that overcast light. You can actually see this one's face.

For once, one of these tree decorations is working for me! This face and arms match the tree pretty well, especially when you see this at night. I think that's why it works, because the texture matches.

You might remember this from her front yard, although I think there were some slight changes this year.

That cat!

This is one creepy and oversized bat! If bats were actually this large, just yikes. Again, this is great at night.

She had her graveyard out again with that assembled mantle. I like the way she uses all these random pieces together to form something new. Some of these yards have decorations you just won't see anywhere else.

This owl is hers too. I love how he looks in front of that bright tree!

Onto a new house... Those hanging candles really do look like they're floating at night. Are those a Harry Potter thing? I'm trying to remember. 

These two inspired me. If I build a scarecrow at some point, I'd like it to look like one of these. 

The person who lives here builds a multi-level display for every holiday and there's usually a message along with it.

I think this is homemade? Everything in this yard seemed to be. 

This guy you'll remember from last year. 

And across the street from the giant pumpkin skeleton man is this yard!

Still theirs...

Her too! She's like a giant kitchen witch. They put her up in the corner of a tree so she's looking down at you.

Well, that's this year's Halloween show around town! For me, this is like adult trick-or-treating, because I'm walking around from house to house, not knowing what I'll find. The photos are the "treats" I take with me. 

I took pics at night too and hope to post those soon. You'll see some of these same yards looking way different. Surprisingly, I liked some of them better in the daylight. You need to light the props for them to be seen, though. Any favorites here?