Most Halloween porch decorating ideas come down to three places: the door, the steps and whatever hangs from the porch ceiling. With those covered, a pile of pumpkins and one good skeleton read clearly from the street.
These 16 porches were decorated by the people who live behind them, from a single front door to a deep covered porch with an old church pew. Much of what is on them was thrifted, grown, made in an afternoon or carried down from the attic, and several turn straight back into a fall porch on November 1.
1. Heirloom Pumpkin Piles With A Thrifted Skeleton And Giant Spider
Porch: A covered front entry with a navy door and a white bench
Standout piece: A huge black spider and webs over the door
Made or bought: Mostly yard-sale and thrift finds collected over the summer
Cost: A farm wagon of heirloom pumpkins for $40
This was Carrie’s first Halloween porch, made because her eight-year-old loves Halloween. The base stays fall: a wreath, a black-edged scalloped doormat from Marshalls, and heirloom pumpkins piled on wooden stools and plant stands so they sit at different heights. The Halloween goes on top, with a seated skeleton, classic jack-o’-lantern buckets and fake bones inside wooden lanterns she built years ago.
The spider is wired to a screw already there for Christmas garland, so the porch gained no new holes.
2. Pumpkin-Covered Steps Under A Giant Spider Web
Porch: Front steps up to a black door
Standout piece: An oversized rope web with a black spider, hung from the roofline
Made or bought: A bought skeleton door hanging, with homemade tomato cage ghosts and wood lanterns
Pumpkins: Approximately one hundred, in orange, green and white
Amanda Hendrix has followed the same formula for the last few years: a spooky door hanging instead of a wreath, an oversized spider web, approximately one hundred pumpkins, faux mums and one or two new things. In 2024 the new things were sheet ghosts built on tomato cages. The steps are simply covered in pumpkins and two black wood lanterns she built.
Command strips on the skeleton’s legs stop it banging against the door in the wind.
3. A Lit Jack-O’-Lantern Arch Around The Front Door
Porch: Brick steps up to an arched front door
Standout piece: An arch of carved craft pumpkins, lit from inside
Materials: Carvable craft pumpkins from Michaels, a PVC frame, electrical ties, orange LED C-7 bulbs
Difficulty: Intermediate, with frame building, drilling and a light string
Orange and white jack-o’-lanterns frame the door, carved by her son and his girlfriend from craft pumpkins bought at 50% off. Each one is tied to a PVC frame and has a hole drilled in the back for a string light, with the clear bulbs swapped for orange LEDs so nothing gets hot.
Around it, her long-running display of skeletons doing skeleton things carries on without any gore, from a Butler figure at the top of the stairs to flickering faux candles on a timer.
4. Black Creepy-Cloth Curtains Behind A Church Pew
Porch: A front porch with an old church pew under the window
Standout piece: Black creepy cloth hung like outdoor curtains either side of the window
Made or bought: A homemade lit Halloween wreath; the post was sponsored by JOANN
Difficulty: Beginner
Kelly Radcliff’s first Halloween porch on the blog was made for her kids in Colorado rather than to scare anyone. The pew carries it, dressed with buffalo-check pillows and an orange throw, with feathered crows perched all over and a skeleton puppy underneath, chosen by her youngest.
The steps stay simple with mums, a Halloween sign and a BOO doormat.
5. A Tiny Off-Grid Porch With Crows, Copper Cauldrons And Lit Witch Hats
Porch: A small timber-framed porch on an off-grid tiny home
Standout piece: Light-up witch hats made from Christmas trees
Made or bought: Handmade hats, crow tree and wreath; HomeGoods cauldrons; Dollar Tree spiders
After Halloween: The cauldrons turn round to their plain backs for fall
The whole porch is built from six elements: something made, something unique, a layered rug, a pumpkin stack, spooky details and a themed wreath. Copper jack-o’-lantern cauldrons hold the mums, a washable plaid rug sits under the doormat, and limbs pulled from the woods become a tree of crows. The wreath is grapevine and sticks with a toy snake tucked in.
Overhead, floating candle lights hang on fishing line and switch on with a light-up wand.
6. White Pumpkins, White Mums And Floating Witch Hats
Porch: A covered porch with a red front door
Standout piece: Black witch hats floating from the porch ceiling
Made or bought: A handmade cornstalk wreath; pumpkins from Trader Joe’s and the grocery store
Difficulty: Beginner
Janine Waite usually goes orange, but kept this year to white and black during a complicated year. More than ten white pumpkins, real and faux, sit in mixed shapes with white chrysanthemums, black crows and a doormat on a black-and-white rug. Two cornstalk garlands frame the red door, and her wreath has witch legs tied on with velvet ribbon.
Each hat hangs on fishing line knotted inside, with temporary Velcro at the other end pressed to Velcro on the ceiling.
7. Striped Steps And A Jack Skellington Topiary
Porch: A concrete porch and steps painted in black and white stripes
Standout piece: A boxwood ball topiary wearing a Jack Skellington mask and bow tie
Made or bought: A wool yarn spider web and a hand-painted mini pumpkin
Best for: The youngest trick-or-treaters
Julia painted the stripes that spring, so the porch is the decoration before anything else goes out. Her husband dresses as Jack Skellington to hand out candy every year, which is how his mask and bow tie ended up on the topiary. Googly eyes on the big spiders and pumpkins make them cute rather than scary.
The web is wool yarn, which she prefers to store-bought webs that take ages to untangle.
8. Black Lanterns, White Pumpkins And A Crow Wreath
Porch: A glass-panelled front door with tall planters either side
Standout piece: Mixed wood and metal lanterns, including black Edison lanterns
Made or bought: Her existing fall porch plus a few swaps; the post was sponsored by JOANN
After Halloween: Straight back to the fall porch until Thanksgiving
This is a fall porch with a handful of swaps rather than a new setup. The tall planters and grasses stay, and the natural wreath gains a small crow and black polka-dot ribbon. Black candlesticks, baby white and gold pumpkins, a black broomstick and a BOO doormat over a round jute rug finish it.
9. A Witch House Porch Made From The Attic And The Yard
Porch: A front door with an urn either side and a porch post for a sign
Standout piece: A Witch House sign she and her son made
Made or bought: Nothing new, not even a pumpkin
Difficulty: Beginner
Amy bought nothing for this witchy black-and-white porch. When her pumpkin patch’s shipment was late, galvanized pumpkins stood in for real ones. The urns hold sticks from the yard dressed with crows, rubber bats and flying skeletons instead of mums, the lanterns are full of plastic skulls, and a skeleton is caught in a web on the door.
The sign is based on the one at the Jonathan Corwin House, the Witch House in Salem, Massachusetts.
10. Skulls Tucked Into A Fern-And-Mum Fall Porch
Porch: A deep porch with an arched brick entry
Standout piece: A large resin skull with light-up eyes
Made or bought: Faded faux pumpkins sprayed white; an old wreath re-covered in plaid ribbon, with a $3.99 floral spray tucked in
After Halloween: The skulls and skeletons come off and the carved pumpkin turns to its plain side
Christy’s country house sits on seven acres and never gets trick-or-treaters, so she added just a touch of Halloween with a few big pieces instead of many small ones. Macho ferns, which stay into November on the deep porch, frame the door.
Mums in burgundy, rust and pink are angled out either side, with smaller mums hiding mismatched nursery pots. The old faux pumpkins got twine stems along with their white paint.
11. Ravens In The Ferns: Five Quick Swaps From Fall To Halloween
Porch: A porch corner with ferns, a crate of mums and a black rocking chair
Standout piece: Twigs and dollar-store ravens pushed into the ferns
Made or bought: Envelope pillow covers sewn from cheap fabric; a wooden raven from JoAnn clearance
After Halloween: The five swaps reverse on November 1
Pam Kessler has never had a trick-or-treater, so this is a gentle, UPS-friendly porch made from five swaps. A leaf on the wreath became a wooden raven, the ferns got twigs and ravens, a cabbage became a repurposed jack-o’-lantern, the fall throw became Halloween-colored pillow covers, and the crate of pumpkins gave way to a few ravens.
In hindsight she would have kept the crate.
12. A Ghost Door Knocker, Twig Trees And Bright Mums
Porch: A white porch with a garden path in front
Standout piece: A cute ghost door knocker in place of the foliage wreath
Made or bought: Buys from Old Time Pottery
Difficulty: Beginner
This before-and-after, featured by Real Homes, shows Joanna Keel’s Alabama porch with the everyday pieces swapped one for one. The pair of ferns became spooky twig trees in dark planters, a black-and-white plaid doormat went over a white rug, and bats run across the wall above the door. Hanging ghosts from the porch roof and Halloween cushion covers fill in the rest.
The pops of color from the mums, she says, really set it off.
13. A Stacked Pumpkin Topiary With A Halloween Branch Tree
Porch: A stone-and-white entry with a tall planter by the door
Standout piece: A stacked topiary of black, orange and white faux pumpkins
Materials: Faux carvable pumpkins, fallen yard branches, Halloween ornaments, mini orange lights
Difficulty: Beginner
A Nebraska snowstorm killed Sarah’s fall cabbage, kale and some of the mums, so the big planter became a pumpkin topiary that survives the cold and comes out again next year. She sawed the tops off the two bottom pumpkins with a serrated bread knife so they nest, then glued the stack.
Branches behind it hang with Halloween ornaments, some of them navy. The post was sponsored by JOANN.
14. A Garden Witch Porch With Pressed-Flower Pumpkins
Porch: A New England porch with railings, corners and room for a console table
Standout piece: A floral witch hat made from an aged costume hat
Made or bought: Home-grown pumpkins, three small DIYs and a $2 thrift chair
Size: A 24 x 36 in Witch Parking Only sign, with a free template
Difficulty: Beginner to intermediate
Jennifer Howard’s garden witch is pretty rather than spooky, and most of it grew nearby: small white Casperita pumpkins from her garden, larger ones from a farm, cornstalks from a neighbor on the railings, and a dried bouquet of marigolds, lavender and flowering oregano. A thrift-store console table under Dollar Tree creepy cloth holds an old lantern, terracotta pots and the pressed-flower pumpkins she made.
A terracotta pot sits under the witch hat so it does not blow away.
15. Scary Chic: White Jack-O’-Lanterns On Stands And Floating Candles
Porch: A white shingled porch at the end of a front walk
Standout piece: White faux jack-o’-lanterns on tall wooden stands
Made or bought: Stands made from 1×2 lumber; pre-strung floating candles; a homemade crescent moon wreath
After Halloween: The cornstalks, pumpkins and mums stay for Thanksgiving
Ashley spray-painted faux jack-o’-lanterns white and set them on stands along the porch, so when they are lit at night they look as if they are floating. The idea came from carved pumpkins on wood stands at Nick’s Cove in Bodega Bay.
Her husband built the stands from 1×2 lumber with small platforms nailed on top. Cornstalk bundles stand either side of the black door, and this is her third year of floating candles under the porch ceiling.
16. A Dead And Breakfast Inn On The Porch Steps
Porch: Front steps with a railing, leading up to the door
Standout piece: A Dead & Breakfast Inn sign with a Vacancy plaque
Made or bought: A homemade sign and luggage cart; made in partnership with Oriental Trading
Difficulty: Intermediate, with a lot of pieces
Mariah turned her porch into a haunted inn. A skeletal concierge and a desk clerk wait at a reception desk under draped black fabric, a homemade luggage cart is stacked with vintage luggage and a crow in a cage, and a ghoulish honeymoon couple, Mr. and Mrs. Rot, completes the guest list. Pumpkins and lanterns line the steps, with creepy cloth along the railing.
