Tombstones & Cemetery Fences

One of the best places to get started as a Home Haunter for Halloween is with the creation of a graveyard scene in your front yard. There are a number of ways to make a headstone that is lightweight and yet realistic looking. And once you get a nice set of headstones built, you will want to give them a little protection by creating a cemetery fence. And what good is a fence without a gate and a sign? Now those tombstones are looking a little basic, let's turn them up a bit and add a mausoleum. And.....

Tombstones

It is common to use 2 inch pink or blue extruded insulation foam sheets to create lots of tombstones. They are easy to rough shape, they have a smooth texture, unlike the white foam made of expanded beads of foam. They are easy to carve by hand with a Dremel, or with more advanced hot wire foam carving techniques. After they are shaped, weathered, and lettered with your favorite epitaphs, you will need to paint over them to give them a more stone-like appearance, and finally finish them off with some detail painting to add moss like effects, darken the lettering, or tea stain them for an aged effect.

Cemetery Fence

Now that you have created a dozen or more incredible tombstones for your yard display, you will want to keep the excited Trick-or-Treaters from running through the graveyard, and accidentally (or intentionally) kicking and breaking them. One easy and themed way of doing this is to add a cemetery fence to outline your yard display. One simple technique to create the effect of a wrought iron fence is to take two 1" x 2" x 8' boards and four 10' sections of 1" plastic conduit. Cut the conduit into 3 equal pieces so you have a total of 12 sections of plastic conduit about 3' 4". Stack the two wooden 1x2 strips and clamp them together. Measure in a few inches from each end and measure out and drill 12 equally spaced holes to just fit the conduit sections. Assemble the fence in much the same way you would build a ladder - except with a few inches of extra conduit sticking out past the top and bottom rails. Once you get the pieces in place and where you like them, pre-drill some holes into the side of the rails and into the plastic conduit - stopping half way through, then secure with a 1/2" pan head screw to keep things from moving. Do this at each intersection of pipe and wood, then paint the whole thing black. Congratulations - you just created one section of fence. That wasn't too hard, was it? No, go measure the rest of your yard and see how many more sections of fence you will need to secure your yard and get to work!

Keep in mind that this is the simple version of the classic cemetery fence which home haunters have been using for decades. You can creative with staggering the height of the fence pieces, adding a third or fourth horizontal rail, adding circular embellishments by cutting rings of PVC pipe, adding decorative finials to the top - and more. A well painted fence can last five years if stored outside without cover, or even longer if covered with a plastic tarp to keep the weather out. If stored inside, they can last nearly forever. The most common break is along the bottom rail where people who think the fence is real and rest a foot on it - and accidentally break a section.

Gates

Once you have a fence put up, you will need to get access into the fenced off area somehow. Some choose to add a decorative or functional gate to their cemetery fence.

Columns

One classic look is to help steady your new fence with stone or brick looking columns between each section and beside any gates you may have built. These often are made of a 2x4 wood frame, clad in OSB or plywood, then covered in foam insulation and carved to look like stone or brick, then painted to look the part. It is not uncommon for these hollow columns to hold projectors, fog machines, lighting effects, or even an animated prop that comes out of the top of the column to startle passers by.

Cemetery Signs

Now that you have your cemetery setup with tombstones and a killer fence with gates and columns - you may want to show off a bit and advertise it with a sign announcing the name of your cemetery to the world. A common way to do this is with a curved sign over a cemetery gate, mimicking many real cemeteries.

Mausoleums

A mausoleum is a large structure when compared to a simple tombstone in a graveyard scene. But with size comes opportunity. Many mausoleums that are built by haunters are a base for an animated floating ghost, peppers ghost illusion, or hold scrim and a projector for projecting a digital decoration. Construction is similar to a cemetery fence column - only scaled up to the size of a small shed.

Larger Monuments

Some larger monuments are amazing and worth the extra effort to build. They can range from tall obelisks to statues to a touching Beloved tombstone.