Halloween Decorating: 6 Smart Ways to Prep Your House for Parties and Trick-or-Treaters

With cooler weather, pumpkins, spice and everything scary popping up in stores, it’s hard to forget that Halloween is almost 2 weeks away. Vantage Controls, a leading provider of lighting control systems, has outlined several ways to prepare for the 31^st, leaving only intended tricks and treats for visitors who come knocking.

Haunted House: Halloween isn’t complete without a haunted house or costume party. Dim your lights to evoke a perfectly ghoulish ambience in the rooms where you’ll be entertaining. By tying the lights to a simple control system, the lights can be timed to turn on and off throughout the night, or to help lead your guests to other area of the house, like the out of the kitchen and into the living room to socialize. Controllable lights can also be set to guide party-goers to the powder room or the guest bedroom where you’ve stashed their coats.

Trick-or-Treat: Did you remember to buy bags of bite-size candy bars? Be sure to help the little neighborhood goblins find their way to your front door by using a lighting control system to schedule the porch lights to pop on promptly at the kickoff of your village’s scheduled trick-or-treat time. If you have places to be later on, program a stop time into the system, and the porch lights will turn off, signaling trick-or-treaters that your candy supply has been depleted.Just be prepared for some tricks … or maybe not if you use motion sensors to trigger on lights the instant someone steps onto your property. These, too, can be programmed to only react during a certain time periods.

Monster Mash: A wireless whole-house audio system can provide spooky side effects or your favorite playlist.  If you’re willing to hand over the controls, be sure to give our guests access to the system so they can run the “jukebox” from their smartphones while you’re busy restocking the buffet table or answering the front door, which, by the way, can also be controlled from an app. Swap your traditional deadbolt lock for a smart version so you can lock and unlock the door from wherever you happen to be – even if you happen to be joining the kids for a few minutes during their rounds of the neighborhood.

Shady Characters: Program the window shades to rise and lower, revealing a black cat, hovering ghost, or other scenes quickly and easily. Many shading systems are wireless and can be controlled via a smartphone app, so there’s nothing scary about installing or operating them.

Things That Go Bump in the Night: Motion sensors are a great way to ensure that pathways are properly lit, when needed. Select color changing LED lamps for a colored alternative – purple, orange, or even red can add to your Halloween decorations, without compromising on safety. And get creative – motion sensors can also activate other plugged items, like a scary witch at her cauldron and other animated decorations.

Beware the Stroke of Midnight. Halloween falls on a Monday this year, and most of us still have to get up the next morning and go to work. Use a lighting control system to schedule lights to turn lights on after you finish dinner and off when you’re ready to go to bed, so you don’t get any late night trick-or-treaters waking you up for that last candy bar.

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