New home, new layout and thus a new game of decorating tetris!
Styling our Okinawa home for Halloween 2020 was a bit rough, mainly because I didn’t have any of my favorite stores at my fingertips. There was no Michaels, Marshalls, Target, or Ross to run to at the drop of a hat, to hunt for filler items or spooky new finds to add to our home. Japan traditionally doesn’t celebrate Halloween, but you can find some cute and fun Halloween items in stores here or there… just, nothing like the States. My heart ached to roam the aisles of Halloween decor at a Spirit Halloween… don’t get me started.
Luckily, my Halloween stash is extensive and I spent very little this year on additional purchases to add to my growing collection of bins. I was able to redirect my shopping energy into creative styling (and that game of decor tetris), and ended up with the perfect Halloween home filled with spooky details and festive vibes.
Witch Haven Entryway
My favorite part of our Okinawa home is the entryway. In Twentynine Palms, you walked directly into our living room from the front door. This open floor plan concept is not my favorite when it comes to the front of the house… I may be an oddity in home decor, but I really prefer when rooms are walled off enough that they are physically defined as a separate space! So far, this Okinawa home has become my favorite of all three base houses we’ve lived in because of that!
The entryway came together easily, mainly because I had a clear vision in mind – I wanted it to look like you were walking into a Sanderson sister’s modern day home. There was minimal effort other than making my Broom Parking sign on my Cricut. I wanted to incorporate decor you would expect to find a witches home – potions, her broom and hat, her spells, etc. Almost everything I already owned but never really got to display well in our previous base housing.
Anyone else have a family command center in their home – an area where the family calendar and other regularly needed information is kept? This area used to get so cluttered in our last home, and if you remember from my 2019 tour post, it was backed against a window by my front door. Now that the command center is off to the right of our entryway, against a solid wall, it felt so much easier to decorate. And most importantly: my mini Witch Gnome finally found a place where he could be appreciated.
Dining Room and Kitchen
Two weeks into October, I realized that I needed to use my animatronics from Home Depot, so I pulled out my Swamp Witch and moved her to the corner of the dining room for added flare. She ended up fitting perfectly, and really tied the room together! I also recently changed out the bulbs in the room to blue LED bulbs and my son has been in Halloween heaven ever since! It’s not worth doing for the entire month of October, but changing the lights in a room to blue or green seems adds to the creepy-factor!
The dining table centerpiece was the hardest to figure out. I love our circular dining table but I struggle with creating a centerpiece I love. The shape just throws me off. So, I swapped my usual circular tray or a rectangular one and it really helped! It took me 3 days and 2 “phone a few friend” conversations, before I ended up with something that felt in sync with the room.
Our kitchen is an open walkway with minimal wall space, but plenty of nooks to add some details. I got inspired from Instagram to create a kitchen basket with fun Halloween plates/cups/napkins and that will forever be my new thing. I always have so many festive holiday items on hand, so the kitchen basket is a great way to make everyday snack time fun for the kiddo (and me, obviously). I added in a few other small details to help the area feel festive.
Skulls and Bones Bathroom
I collect a lot of skulls and skeletons; they’re definitely a Halloween must have and you can always find them in different styles, textures and colors. I decided to do a skelly themed guest bathroom and I ended up loving how it turned out!
Resting Witch Living Room
Once we switched out living room palette to reflect more pops of colors and brightness, I was worried a bit with how Halloween decor would look. Even though I ended up ditching my festive pillow cases, I really love how the space turned out. My goal has always been to weave our holiday decor into our current living space – it’s less cleanup, and its more recognizable. I really love how I carried that into this season. It still looks like MY living room… just with a layer of Halloween fun.
There are plenty of fun details in the living room – little tombstones, pumpkins of all colors, textures and sizes, and most importantly this Happy Halloween sign I purchased from Ross two years ago. I could never find a place to display it before! My husband actually helped me decide to place it on the bookshelf after he saw me pondering for an hour on it. It felt like it fit there perfect, surrounded by creepy gauze and everyday bookcase items.
My biggest decorating headache was the living room coffee table… I’m new to table styling and had to do a lot of Pinteresting to find something that worked. Even with Pinterest, not having access to all the stores, made it hard to figure out how to create an eye catching but balanced coffee table centerpiece. In the end, a few back and forth messages between a good friend helped me fine tune this gold tray into a creepy beauty. My favorite part? The cauldron filled with lit-mesh, giving it this beautiful purple glow in the evening!
And once I went down the coffee table styling rabbit hole, I had to find an appropriate coffee table book. The ‘Handbook’ from the Beetlejuice movie was a fun add; I found a journal-replica on Amazon and fell in love with it.
Overall, the game of tetris was as much of a headache as I expected it to be but the end result was amazing and filled me with all the Halloween-joy I could handle. It will be easy to throw it all up again next Halloween, now that everything has a home, but I suspect I’ll make some creative detail upgrades next year. Until then, I get to enjoy the 2020 spooky vibes for one more week before putting up my traditional fall decor – Happy Haunting!
Craving more indoor Halloween decor inspiration? Check out my Oki-Edition Halloween Virtual Home Tour, spotlighting four other Okinawa homes!