Behind The Door: Our Blog

After many talks with family, friends, and helpers, you’ve decided to turn your garage into a haunted house this Halloween. Let’s just say… we think you made the right choice! The garage is the perfect place to make a frightening area for trick-or-treaters to enjoy!

As the garage experts we are, we've helped many people customize their garages for all kinds of uses. Turning your garage into a haunted house is a lot of work, but trust us, it will be worth it when you see your guests’ faces!

Let’s get spooky!

Step 1: Clean – Organize and tidy up the garage

Before you turn your garage into a spook-tacular experience, you must organize and completely clean the space. The more stuff you organize and move, the more room you’ll have to work with for the haunted house. The most important thing here is to move or push everything to the walls, and in a few steps, you’ll know why!

Step 2: Plan – Map Out Your Haunted House

Sure, throwing a bunch of scary decorations and people into a room can be frightening. However, if you thoroughly plan out every exhibit, space, and moment, it will be 10 times scarier!

Will you make your garage into a complicated maze? Where will guests be entering and exiting? Where does each exhibit fit? These are all questions that can be solved with a well thought out and executed plan. We suggest having your guests walk through a “U” shaped maze so that there is one clear entrance, exit and direction.

You’ll also want to decide who the Haunted House is for. If you pick a very scary theme, be sure to have an minimum age requirement decided upon. If you’re planning some spooky fun for your younger neighbors, choose a theme that’s kid-friendly and exciting instead of horrifying.

Step 3: Gather – Visit the Hardware and Halloween Stores

Time to hit the hardware and Halloween stores! In the previous step, you should have in your plan the necessary tools, objects, materials, and other items to perfectly build your garage haunted house.

The Halloween store is going to be your best friend for all things scary! Is your theme based on spiders carrying a deadly virus? The Halloween store will have you covered. Also, if you’re going to be hiring human help (see step #8) you will need to buy costumes!

Step 4: Darkness – Black out the Garage

Once you’re back home with all of your supplies, you should have stocked up on black tarps, sheets, or some other black cover material. Your goal here is to cover as much of the exposed garage as you can with black.

The darker, the scarier!

Step 5: Decorate – Transform Your Garage

This is the most important step, and it’s completely up to you how you extreme you want to take it. First, you’ll want to make sure you’ve created your maze by hanging curtains or tarps or putting up temporary walls. Then, depending on your theme, decorate your garage in a way that tells your Halloween story (ie. deadly spider virus outbreak).  The further a guest walks through the path, the more terrifying or spook-tacular your decorations should be. By the very end, your guests should be screaming as they exit to the safety of the driveway. Be sure to give them candy for making it all the way through!

Step 6: Outside – Catch People’s Attention

While decorating the inside of your garage haunted house is the most important step, the outside needs to have some personality as well. Attract guests by giving them a hint of what’s inside by setting up small decorations, signs, or other objects outside of the garage. But here’s the thing, you do not want to give away what’s inside the garage! You must surprise your guests!

Step 7: Music – Turn on the Creepy Sounds

Time to set the atmosphere with a chilling soundtrack! Set up speakers in a surround sound manner to make sure all your guests are hearing the same frightening tone of music. You can find many different types of haunted house soundtracks at your local Halloween store.

Step 8: Human Help – Cast a Crew of Scary Characters

Speaking from experience, real people in garage haunted houses are one of the most frightening things you can have! The amount of room you have in your garage will decide how many humans you can have in your garage haunted house. Suit up your cast in scary costumes and let them scare your guests by popping out of nowhere or walking around the entire set!

Step 9: Test – Give Your Garage Haunted House a Test Run

It’s time to make sure everything is in place and perfect before you open the gates to your terrifying haunted house. We recommend having one of your close friends or family members do a practice run earlier in the day before you open it up. Make sure it’s the right experience for the age group you’re aiming to spook.

However, it is important to prioritize safety when transforming your garage into a haunted house. A malfunctioning garage door or opener can be a frightening experience in itself. Make sure to take precautions to avoid damaging the operation of your garage or compromising any of its safety features. If you need assistance, we offer a range of new garage door openers with advanced smart home features and safety mechanisms to enhance your home. Feel free to reach out to us for any garage-related issues or questions you may have.

Step 10: Open the Gates!

All your hard work is completed and ready for pure enjoyment! Sit back, relax, and watch your guests walk out of your haunted house in awe (or in tears)! To ensure everyone is happy with the experience, be sure to hand out candy at the end!

We’d love to hear how you turned your garage into a haunted house! Leave us a comment below with your story or share your story with us on Facebook!

Before you can build a haunted house, you have to make sure your garage is running perfectly so a malfunction won’t leave you embarrassed on the big day. Let us know if you need help with the motor, door, spring or any other garage issue!