So I'm finally finally putting up my Halloween decorations this weekend. I have to do a little cleaning and reorganizing first. But it got me thinking that a lot of my permanent year-round decor is a little spooky already. Unless you know me in real life, you haven't seen exactly what I mean since I've shown very few pics outside of my kitchen. So! I decided to do a mini house tour, showcasing my creepy and kooky items. I enjoy these pieces 365 but figured you would find it entertaining with the Halloween season upon us. To satisfy further curiosities-- the rest of my house is an array explosion of antiques and pop-culture, namely Star Wars. Children always love our house and we have been told many a time that our house is like a museum! Okay, so on with the show!
These classic monster movie posters are very dear to my heart. They hang on both sides of a hallway that turns. I started collecting them in 2003. My favorite is The Creature from the Black Lagoon since it's my all-time favorite classic monster movie. Second favorite is Plan 9 because it's such a horrible movie. If you're unfamiliar or can't get a hold of it, find Ed Wood starring Johnny Depp, to start with.
This set of posters includes: The Raven, Dracula, House on Haunted Hill, The Wolfman, a different Dracula poster, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, Night of the Living Dead, The Bride of Frankenstein, Plan 9 from Outer Space, The Mummy, Frankenstein, and The Invisible Man.
At the end of the hallway is a kind-of life-size sarcophagus bookshelf carved from wood. When we moved last December, it was the only thing I truly cared about breaking. Suffice it to say it wasn't cheap. Suffice it to say it's also a horrible bookshelf. The shelves inside aren't very deep or accommodating in any way. I also can't climb inside of it. But aside from those flaws, I love it.
I bought it at an Egyptian import store and the man who owned the store was nice enough to let me put it on layaway and pay it off little by little each time I got my paycheck. The store it came from was incredibly cool and I would have loved to buy so many more goodies-- Canopic jars would have been next on my list. My mom paid the last little bit of it off as part of a Christmas present and come the new year (2009), the store was gone and I never saw the nice Egyptian man ever again. This story would be so much creepier if his store was a dusty, scary place full of oddities and only accessible via a door at the end of a dark alley... instead of being located underneath the mall food court in an old jewelry store that went bankrupt earlier that year. It would also be creepier if he really disappeared. He just didn't renew his lease. But that isn't exactly campfire ghost story material.
The sarcophagus was in our bedroom for the first two years, stood in our dining room at our last house, and is now in the hallway of this house. Sleeping with it in the bedroom never creeped us out although it took the dog a good month to get used to it. She would wake up in the middle of the night, realize it was there, and start barking at it. This sounds like the making of spooky movie about a curse but was instead just annoying because it would be late and we would have work the following morning. You see it unexpectedly as the hallway turns and it has been known to startle the cable guy. Fun fact: he has a twelve inch vertical crack around his knee-area from last year when I may have been playing with a Frisbee in the house.
At the beginning of the hallway, we have a little nook with two tall bookshelves that face one another. My husband and I affectionately and jokingly refer to this as the library. One shelf holds DVDs and a dozen or so VHS tapes while the other bookcase holds, well, books! Between the two, at eye level, is a face.
A lot of people mistakenly identify this creepy, sleeping head as Alfred Hitchcock, but it's Bela Lugosi. This is an incredibly heavy life cast made from Bela Lugosi's face. I've had this for 12 years now and have only had it hanging on the wall for the last 9 months or so. Prior to that, I was just so afraid it would fall.
Do you still have things that your ex boyfriend or girlfriend gave you? A lot of times people get rid of that stuff and understandably so. I cannot. Get rid of. Bela Lugosi. I didn't end my relationship with Bela. My first born daughter was to be named Bela-- until Twilight happened. Bottom line, it's one of the coolest gifts I ever received and I hope Bela's decapitated head outlives me. Staring at his eyelids and waiting for them to suddenly open is totally normal. I do this sometimes on my way to switch the laundry.
Marine, nautical and or beachy themes are super popular for bathrooms. Mine kind of falls into that category. I have a guest bathroom decorated with a Bioshock theme because I love the Bioshock franchise and I also needed somewhere to stick all of my toys and posters. These are just a few snapshots. There's much more to the bathroom and I've been meaning to post about my Bioshock bathroom for almost two years now. So stay tuned for that.
People comment quite regularly that this bathroom creeps them out. I guess that's a plus if I don't want people lingering and peeking through my uninteresting medicine cabinet. I haven't had a chance to try it yet, but I need to get a rectangular mirror to hang lengthwise behind this mask so that you would see your reflection in the mirror as if you were wearing the mask. It looks really cool in my brain and hopefully will translate and work out the way I want, so we'll see.
While the rest of our house feels like a TGIFridays (AKA lots of crap all over the walls everywhere), our bedroom is quite plain. It is a place to sleep and relax after all. The few items we have as decor reflect love-- in kind of creepy ways I guess.
I got this poster at New York Comic Con 2012. I wanted it the moment I saw it and said, "We need that for our bedroom!" They're holding hands! It's really sweet except this is the part of the movie where she starts screaming her head off.
This Walking Dead zombie scared me so bad that I dropped my phone and my precious poster.
This day of the dead wedding couple was an engagement gift from my mother. We were going to use it as a wedding cake topper but ended up making our own. The happy couple still attended our wedding though and even had their picture taken. We've had it as the solitary item in this curio cabinet for almost two years now.
The cabinet came from Etsy and the seller was so worried it would break traveling from Indiana to Arizona (it isn't small). It arrived safe and sound. When my husband and I were hanging it in our first home, the glass door flung open and shattered. We felt bad but let it be cause we did it together. I beaded some hot glue on to prevent injuries or further damage. It looked creepy before but looks creepier with the broken glass. I love it.
Lastly the Wolfman and Gwen in a loving embrace. The Wolfman really is a love story. Total chick flick. He loved Gwen. It wasn't his fault he was a werewolf. I'm decorating this weekend and will update when the house is even spookier!
Very fun!!
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