The Yard of the Living Dead

A Brief Essay on the Versitility of PVC Pipe.

2011-11-12T11:15:00.001-07:00

Hello everyone. As part of an assignment for my ENGL 4500 class this semester, I have written a short essay about the many uses of PVC pipe for home haunters.

PVC pipe has been described as "Tinker Toys for haunters". I learned first-hand just how true this statement was when I spent the better part of two months constructing all of the props for my home haunt this year. My former employer was a fence manufacturer and I was able to acquire a large amount of PVC pipe for free. Any home haunter will tell you that first, free stuff is good and second, free PVC pipe is awesome.

Because my home haunt will have a cemetery theme this year, I wanted to start out by constructing a cemetery fence that gives the appearance of wrought iron. This fence will get reused year after year so it needs to be sectional for easy storage and sturdy enough to last for many seasons. I decided to construct my fence in eight-foot sections. The horizontal "bars" are made from scrap wood; 2 x 4's for the bottom "bars" and 1 x 4's for the middle and top "bars". The vertical "bars" are made from PVC pipes that have been cut to different lengths and arranged to give the fence sections a peaked appearance. Holes have been drilled in the horizontal "bars" at six inch intervals to accommodate the PVC pipes which have been secured with screws. Each eight-foot section of cemetery fence has fifteen vertical PVC pipe "bars". The entire fence section has been painted black to give the appearance of wrought iron. Since setting up the fence in my front yard, I have had several people comment on it thinking that it was a real wrought iron fence.

I also used PVC pipe in the construction of the tombstones for my cemetery. Three-foot sections of PVC pipe were sandwiched between two 1 1/2 thick pieces of Styrofoam. The Styrofoam sheets were made into tombstones of different sizes and shapes. The lengths of PVC pipe were placed over re bar which had been pounded into the ground to anchor the tombstones and keep them from falling over.

PVC pipe doesn't have to be used only in applications that require straight forms. PVC pipe can be bent into any shape with the application of heat. I used a heat gun to soften several three foot sections of PVC pipe. The PVC pipe was then turned or rolled into a spiral shape. When the desired shape was obtained, the PVC pipe was submerged in cool water to make it rigid again. Once PVC pipe has been softened and re-cooled, it is actually stronger than it was previously. These PVC pipe spirals were attached to the stone columns of the cemetery fence and used as brackets from which lanterns were hung

A heat gun can also be used to heat and bend PVC pipe into a shape that can be used as an armature for a skeleton or corpse that can inhabit the cemetery. Here is a shot of a corpse-in-progress.

Here are a few pictures of the cemetery as it looked on Halloween night.

Jack-O-Lanterns 2011

2011-11-01T17:58:00.001-06:00

We continued our annual pumpkin carving tradition this year. Our kids did theirs pretty much by themselves. We listened to the Halloween Party channel on Pandora Radio while we carved this year's Jack-O-Lanterns and had a thoroughly enjoyable time.

The Yard of the Living Dead 2011

2011-11-01T17:50:00.000-06:00

Here are some shots of The Yard of the Living Dead taken late Halloween night.

Everything looked pretty good this year. Our display is still fairly small; but we spent a lot of time doing things the right way. Our cemetery fence looks authentic, is strong, and can be reused year after year. We ditched the cardboard tombstones and replaced them with styrofoam tombstones that look better and last longer. We spent time creating a satisfying fog effect. All in all I think we have a good foundation to build upon in the coming years. Next year I would like to create a more integrated LED lighting system and incorporate sound as well. I want to finish the corpses that I started this year and my wife wants to add some cemetery gates and an archway. Lots to do and my wife has made me promise not to procrastinate on anything. This blog will be the place where I post pictures and progress reports on preparations for The Yard of the Living Dead 2012. Thanks to everyone who checked out my blog this year. I promise to make next year even more entertaining.

Trick or Treat, Day of the Dead Style

2011-11-01T17:23:00.000-06:00

My wife and I decided that we wanted to try our hand at creating some Day of the Dead make up effects for our kids' costumes this year.

You can kind of tell by the style of the teeth, that I did the make up for our two youngest kids on the left and our oldest on the right. My wife did her own make up and the make up for our oldest daughter in the back on the right. The kids had a great time and they got a lot of compliments on their make up.

Here are some close ups of the make up.

The Rib Bone's Connected to... Some Other Bone

2011-10-21T20:26:00.001-06:00

I wanted to put a full corpse in the cemetery this year; but time was just not on my side. I will put together a corpse torso and have it "peeking" out from behind a tombstone. I followed the steps outlined on Christian Hanson's video "Make You Own Scratch Built Corpse" and made a ribcage this week. In his video, Christian uses a plastic 5 gallon bucket to make his ribcage. I am super cheap, so I just used cardboard. I think it will do for my purposes.

Here is Emma Sue The Littlest Zombie modeling the completed ribcage. I will add a PVC pipe spine and arms and corpse it out this weekend. More pictures to follow.

I Decided to Give My Minion a Hand... and an Arm

2011-10-21T20:17:00.000-06:00

My minion is busy building his first styrofoam tombstones. He is very excited to put them in the cemetery. One of his tombstones' epitaphs describes the fate of a man who was buried alive. He wanted to have an arm reaching up from the grave in front of this tombstone. I slapped together a quick newspaper hand and arm for him to use.

I found a thread on the Halloween Forum by FearingtonHouse that talks about a super cheap and fast corpsing method using only outdoor latex paint and paper towels. I am going to give it a try tomorrow and post some pictures of the results.

Quick and Cheap Coffin Creep

2011-10-21T20:04:00.000-06:00

I made a coffin from scrap wood for the cemetery a couple of years ago. I have since turned it into a hiding place for my fog machine and fog chiller. I have always thought that it was a waste not to have some kind of corpse or something inside it; but the fog machine and fog chiller occupy all of the available space. This year, as a quickie, afterthought kind of thing I made a couple of forearms and hands. I stuck them inside the coffin so that they were lifting the lid just enough to stick a foam skull inside the coffin resting on top of the fog chiller.

This prop is quite cheesy; but I wanted the coffin to be more like a prop than just a housing for the fog machine and fog chiller.

Set Up Almost Complete for The Yard of the Living Dead 2011

2011-10-21T19:55:00.001-06:00

Well, tonight was the perfect night for cemetery fog. The air was slightly warm and there was no wind. I was able to make some really creepy fog without any ice in the chiller. I have just a couple more projects and finishing touches that I want to complete before our first "lights on" night on Sunday.

Man, I love creepy cemetery fog! I only hope that the weather stays like this for the next two weekends and the big night.

Teaser Reveal

2011-10-08T14:09:00.002-06:00

Well, the minion and I spent a few hours working in the garage today and were able to put the PVC spirals and the random wire hanger bits together to make...

...some curved brackets and hangers for our Halloween lanterns.

The curved brackets are attached toward the top of the fence columns. There are two curved brackets on each fence column. I also made some toppers for the fence columns today. I think it gives the fence columns a more finished look.

Here are a couple of pictures of the lanterns as it started to get darker. I was able to play around with my webcaster gun today too.

Another Teaser!

2011-10-08T09:18:00.001-06:00

Spent a few hours with my minion watching Battle: LA and Priest while we straightened out a ton of wire hangers. We bent some and rolled some.

Hmmm. What the heck could they be for?

Teaser Alert!

2011-10-07T18:22:00.002-06:00

Spent a few quality hours out in the garage melting some PVC and killing some brain cells.

More to come...

Cemetery Fence 2.0 Is a Go.

2011-10-02T10:24:00.002-06:00

The first day of October was warm and sunny. I spent a few hours with my minion finishing the assembly and painting of the last four or five cemetery fence sections. We got the fence set up and in place. Next Saturday we will tackle the fence finials, lantern hangers, and maybe the fence column toppers. My minion wants to try his hand at tombstone carving and I have a corpse or two to make. The last few Saturdays before Halloween are going to be busy. I hope we continue to have weather like we did today.

Here are a few shots of the cemetery fence as it stands right now. The first is looking East to West. The second is looking West to East. The third is a straight-on shot at a full fence section. The construction is scrap PVC lengths for the vertical bars, scrap 1 X 4's for the top two horizontal bars, and scrap 2 X 4's for the bottom horizontal bars. Everything for this fence (including the columns) was free scrap except for the brackets bolted to the columns and the paint. Hopefully the extra time that it took to "over-engineer" this cemetery fence will translate to a long life for it.

Here are a couple of shots with Emma Sue the littlest zombie added for scale. The fence looks to be strong enough to keep even the most determined of the living dead safely confined.

Fangs For The Memories

2011-09-25T08:42:00.001-06:00

I was at the grocery store running an errand and was looking for some Reeses peanut butter pumpkins for my wife when I ran across some candy wax lips with fangs in the Halloween section. I showed these to my youngest daughter and she had no idea what they were. I of course bought five sets, one for each of my four kids and one for me. It took quite a bit of convincing for my kids to believe that they were really candy.

I think that the moustache wax lips are new. I have no recollection of ever seeing them as a kid. My upper lip is naturally folically challenged, so I bought a moustache for me. I think it looks great! And it's grape flavored.

I Finally Have a Minion!

2011-09-25T08:32:00.001-06:00

My little brother has offered to spend the next five Saturdays in the garage with me getting the yard ready for this Halloween. Yesterday we spent the day working on the new and hopefully improved cemetery fence. We were able to get most of the fence sections assembled and painted. Next week we will finish the fence and set it up that evening. Then we will be moving on to some fun stuff like lighting and tombstones. Hopefully we will get into a little corpsing. I have high hopes for how much will be accomplised now that I have a minion of my very own.

Here's my minion running the paint sprayer.

YARDSALE!

2011-09-12T13:17:00.000-06:00

So, as I was driving back from taking my son to kindergarten today, I passed a house that has been having a yard sale for the past week and a half. Today I noticed some Halloween items that weren't visible on previous days. I stopped to take a look. The proprietess of the yard sale informed me that the Halloween items would not be for sale until Wednesday, but I was free to take a look. As I was perusing her wares, she asked me if my back was sound. I replied that it was and she said that she would be willing to let me buy Halloween merchandise early and make me an extra good deal if I would be willing to move some heavy boxes for her. I spent about ten minutes moving boxes and about twenty minutes selecting my purchases and left with all of this for only five bucks.

These little hanging skeletons will be great for indoor decorating.

You can never have enough bleeding skull taper candles.

I am going to make a body for this oversized skull. He'll look good in the cemetery.

A couple of blucky skulls and a really nice resin anatomical model skull.

I've always wanted one of these guys. It's amazing how realistic the flame effect is on these.

Doodle Time

2011-09-09T21:59:00.001-06:00

Now that I am back in school and find myself sitting in classes for up to two hours at a time, I am starting to accumulate doodles.

These are some MATH 1010 inspired doodles. I think I will chronicle my doodles (as crude and amateurish as they are) here as a way to gauge my overall level of boredom with school.

Tombstone Update

2011-09-09T20:49:00.002-06:00

Here are some progress pictures of my new tombstones for this year.

These pictues show the tombstones after a base coat of grey exterior latex paint.

These pictures show the tombstones after a blackwash with some watered down black outdoor latex paint and then a drybrush with some watered down grey outdoor latex paint the same color as the base coat. The last picture is of a tombstone that was meant to be just for practice, but it turned out looking OK. I decided to make it part of the cemetery this year. I still have some weathering and maybe some moss to add to these tombstones. I will post more pictures when they are done.

Cemetery Fence 2.0

2011-08-22T21:47:00.002-06:00

Some of you may remember that last year I scored about 10 of these plastic columns from my employer. My intention was to use them as fence columns for a cemetery fence. I put together a bunch of eight-foot fence sections using PVC pipe (also free from work) and scrap 1 x 3 wood. I used small metal brackets to attach the fence sections directly to the columns. All this was done very last minute and while it looked good (we got a lot of compliments from people driving by), it wasn't extremely solid. Now for the error part of the trial and error system. The columns are hollow plastic and are in two sections. the bottom section is about 4 feet tall and is open at the bottom. the top section is about another 2 feet tall and is open at the top. One week before Halloween we had a major rainstorm. During the night, the top sections of the fence columns filled up with water, making them top heavy. When the wind hit it was all over. We woke up to find every fence column tipped over and many of the fence sections broken. I threw out all of the fence sections and put the columns away (only after cutting a hole in the bottom of all the top sections so that water could not collect in them), vowing to learn from my mistakes in the next year. Well next year is now.

I decided that the surface of the columns was too uneven to attach the fence sections directly. I bolted a section of 2 x 4 to the columns with a nice wide bracket at the top and bottom. The height of the 2 x 4 is the same as the space between the bottom and middle rail of the fence sections. I squirted some Great Stuff behind the 2 x 4 to fill in all of the nooks and crannies and give the 2 x 4 a more solid base.

Here you can see how the fence sections will sit on the brackets. There is still a lot to do on this project. I will post more on my progress in the next couple of days.

Tombstone Update

2011-08-20T22:09:00.001-06:00

Well, I finally finished carving and engraving my first batch of styrofoam tombstones. I used stencils that I made with my wife's Cricut machine for the lettering. All of the detailing was done with a soldering iron. Some very minimal shaping was done with a hacksaw blade. Each of these tombstones is named for each of my four kids.

This tombstone reads: Samuel (our oldest son) and then: Sam Bones (his nickname because of how freakishly skinny he is). His cause of death is listed as: wasted away. The skull detail was made by cutting the back from a Great Stuff foam skull that I had laying around. I attached it with some hot glue. The shaping around the skull was done with a hacksaw blade.

This tombstone reads: Abigail (our oldest daughter) and then: Abbiecadabra (this seemed almost too cute; but I went with it anyway). Her cause of death is listed as: burned at the stake (duh). The pentagram detail was just one that I found with a Google image search for pentagram. I pretty much just free handed it with a Sharpie and then engraved it with a soldering iron.

This tombstone reads: Noah (our youngest son) and then: Noah Constrictor (this was his nickname when he was a toddler because he was a major hugger. He liked to get his arms around you and just squeeze as tight as he could). His cause of death is listed as: stuffed and mounted (bummer). The snake detail is based loosely on the logo for the TV show Millennium. I did quite a bit of detail work with the soldering iron trying to get the snake to look more three dimensional. It should really pop out after it is painted. Again I did a little shaping in the center with a hacksaw blade.

This tombstone reads: Emma (our youngest daughter) and then: Emma Sue The Littlest Zombie (I know it's a mouthful; but trust me, it fits her). Her cause of death is listed as: her fate is unknown. This was the simplest design out of all four tombstones. I just did a Google image search for girl silhouette. All the detail work was done with a soldering iron.

These tombstones will get a coat or two of Dry-Lok and then a nice paint job (hopefully this week).

Put a Lid on That Mud.

2011-08-03T21:40:00.001-06:00

I was toying with the idea of putting together a monster mud prop this year until I spent an entire weekend retexturing the house...

I am officially not in the mood.

FREEDOM!!!

2011-07-05T23:14:00.002-06:00

It's become a tradition for me to carve at least one melon-o-lantern on the fourth of July. So, I hope you enjoy my celebration of my freedom to pay tribute to Halloween in July.

Fun With Foam!

2011-06-04T13:09:00.001-06:00

Those of you who have read previous posts on this blog know that originally, all of the tombstones in my cemetery were made from cardboard. My reasoning for this was that at work I had access to plentiful and free cardboard. Last season, however was unusually wet. This made for some very squishy tombstones. This year I have decided to make the switch to foam tombstones. I purchased a couple of 2 inch thick, 4 foot by 8 foot sheets of pink foam at the Home Depot. Shortly thereafter, I stumbled upon 26 sheets of 2 1/2 inch thick, 16 inch by 45 1/2 inch white beaded foam and half of a sheet of the 2 inch thick pink foam in a dumpster at a construction site between work and home. The white beaded foam is kind of hard to work with and messy so I decided to use these sheets to make some filler stones with a very basic shape and only details that could be added with a soldering iron which is the least messy method of working with this foam. If I follow the method that Terra uses, sandwiching two sheets of foam together for each tombstone this should give me 13 good filler tombstones for my cemetery.

I will make some tombstones with a flat top,

some with a rounded top,

And some with a pointed top.

I am always trying to give my kids a reason to hang out with me in the garage. We decided that there were too many pieces of scrap foam going to waste. We remedied this problem by making some little foam mementos that I know my wife will absolutely hate and probably not allow in the house. This was good practice for me using the soldering iron to apply lettering and detail to the foam. The Batman insignia in the second picture is my favorite, followed by the Super Mario mushroom. I will use the pink foam for more detailed tombstones.

Look Honey, it's a sign... literally and figuratively.

2011-05-18T23:17:00.003-06:00

As a home haunter with little to no budget, I have to be as creative and cheap as possible when building props. I have developed the habit of looking at any scraps, junk, and cast-offs that I encounter with an eye to their potential for prop-making. If I think that something could be of use in the future, I hold onto it. This practice is much maligned by my wife. Whenever I come home from work with anything loaded in the back of my truck, she rolls her eyes at me and I can tell that she is silently counting to ten in an effort to keep from launching into another ten-minute tirade about how there can't possibly be enough room in the garage for anymore junk. Thus far I have manged to retain control of the garage; so long as there is room to park our vehicles inside, the rest of the space is mine. The block on which our house was built used to belong to the city. They used the space to park municipal vehicles and equipment and to store a lot of junk. The empty lot next to our house consistently yeilds up random objects that leave us scratching our heads. We have spent the last two years tilling up a patch of this empty lot trying to get a garden to grow. After pulling out about a million rocks, countless chunks of concrete and blacktop, and two manhole covers we have some pretty decent dirt to work with. This spring I made my most satisfying random discovery yet. A metal sign with a message that seemed to be meant just for me.

The universe is trying to tell me something. I think I will hang it in the garage.

Anti-Climactic Moment of the Week

2011-05-03T21:56:00.005-06:00

I manage a warehouse for a fence-manufacturing company and that warehouse is located in an industrial park with other light-industrial businesses. When I have a few moments to spare during the day, I like to stroll over to the other side of the industrial park to the soda machine. Of course I peek in all of the dumpsters along the way. One particular day during my stroll, I noticed someone placing an item into a dumpster. Not really uncommon; except that he then proceeded to cover the item with trash already in the dumpster in an attempt to conceal it. In the middle of an uneventful day, this bit of intrigue set my mind into overdrive.

On closer inspection, I saw that the item was an old trunk. Oh boy! There could have been anything in this trunk. The fact that the guy who dumped it went to the trouble to try and conceal it made it even more interesting. Drugs, incriminating photos, counterfit money, severed body parts; the possibilities were endless. I uncovered the trunk and undid the latches; but found that the lock was engaged. I walked back to the warehouse and retrieved some screwdrivers with which to pop the lock. The anticipation was mounting.

I popped the lock and pushed back the lid to reveal...

A bunch of useless, boring junk. What a letdown! Instead of severed body parts I get...

Precious Moments fugurines!

Blech! I did, however take the trunk (after emptying out all of the offensive cutesy trinkets). Maybe I will make a "monster in a box" out of it.

Uhh... I'll have a Mark Of The Beast Meal with a Coke please.

2011-05-03T21:23:00.003-06:00

Every now and again I am prone to gluttony. When I am in this state, I do what all real Americans do. I head over to McDonalds. Of course, there is one conveniently located for my lunch break.

Because gluttony is one of my favorite of the seven deadly sins, I have found the perfect combination of food items that will not only make me feel like a bloated pig; but also comes with a perverse little bonus. If I order two cheeseburgers in a large-sized combo meal plus two cherry pies the total comes to...

That's right, $6.66. Wash that down with a Coke and it makes for a devilishly good lunch.