If you've read some of my other blogs on the subject, you'll know that my main focus with my design over 25 years was to be frugal.
I did want something spectacular, but on a very limited artist's budget.
I think I succeeded in a number of ways, and the challenge of that had some unanticipated rewards.

First, Re-Use
I used resale & scrap wood, I build and rebuild, re-glue and screw. I try to think of any way I can use something before I cast it aside. This lightens the financial aspect of Haunted House making considerably. And my environmental impact is always foremost on my mind, so I feel better working with scrap that was destined for a landfill. And I've found some unique ways to reuse things that I never would have thought about if my first instinct was to toss it.
And nature always fights every year, and we do our little dance where I try to salvage something but it eventually decays over time. No one wins against Nature, but I enjoy dance and the challenge!

Work with what you have
If you have a few Halloween objects, enough to create a theme, that's where you start. You can add on from there. Look around your house and find any object or shape that may be converted
into something spooky. I have a designated plastic crate. Every
time I find an unusual jar, a piece of tech or cloth, anything with
potential, it goes in the crate and is sorted through at the
beginning of the season.

Conceptualize
Conceptualization is important for a Haunted Houser, the ability to not only see what a thing is, but what it may become. To be able to see the diamond in the rough.
Look around your house and find any object or shape that may be converted into something spooky. I have a designated plastic crate. Every time I find an unusual jar, a piece of tech or cloth, anything with potential, it goes in the crate and is sorted through at the
beginning of the season.
Look at what weird jar or texture or shapes you may have around you, not just at Halloween but through the year.

Have to Buy? Start Cheap
If you want to have an inexpensive variety of things, that's fine to start out, go with more that are cheaper than a couple that are more expensive. You can always add on, and you may want to make one or two of them their own full theme one day.
I'll give you advice on some of the cheapest themes, because I use them in mine!


Cheap Materials
The best materials are free, but if you're going to buy, these are the best bang for your buck.

Wood/Wood Panels/Wood Layers/Wood Figures
What makes a Haunted House awesome is layers. It adds a sense of depth, a sense of height. Wood can give you those layers, add to the outside as design details and on the inside as props.
Wood can be screwed in secured easily and stored easily.
Use scrap first, but even if you have to buy it, a little goes a long way, use every bit for one thing or another. These are props you can use every year, they're stackable, with no worries about rust or breakage.

I create each section or theme with a 'rule of three' layered design, two of those 3 layers are wood.
Layer 1
This is the inside walls of the side panels. I paint them solid black, then create a design in white, and then go over that with fluorescent paints, which can be seen best if you create in white and black first.
Layer 2
These are the props made of wood. These do not take up a lot of width, they don't get in the visitors way, yet they can be intricately detailed and add an incredible sense of depth which will make things appear bigger and deeper.
Layer 3
I try to have a few animatronics, at least one in each area. These add volume, shape, interest, and most importantly, movement. This is a 'jump-scare-free-zone'. So movement is needed for balance and enjoyed without it being extreme.

Cloth, Bags and Wire Hangers
Use those old sheets, rags, blankets, and fill up some plastic bags with them. Twist and tie-on, confine and sculpt, you can create figures, ghosts or a base shape for something, even with a free-form thing as a bag full of clothes. Pull apart wire hangers and use them for structural support for your figures, there's lots of things around the house that can be used to create. Conceptualize!

Spider Webbing
For the few dollars a bag of fake spider webs costs, they can completely alter the mood of the entire haunt. Get the ones that glow in the dark, or rather, under a black-light. It's one of the last things I do to my final design and man, it brings a punch. And it stops people from touching a lot of the items, or guides them to areas you want them to go.


Cheap Themes

SPIDERS
You can make your own giant spiders or buy a mix of sizes fairy cheap. Just think of all the crazy things you can do with a pool noodle! Or hangers and fabric, hoses, Just add fur, do your
research on what scary spiders look like, their pattern, designs,
anatomy and coloration. The best fantasy has aspects of reality.

LAB-MAD SCIENTIST
You'd be surprised about how much of these things you have lying around your house. Crazy jars, electrical equipment, nozzles and displays, tubes, etc.
I'm always on the lookout for odd shaped things and save them for possible use. Be choosy. I'm careful about what I save, you don't want to be a packrat, you'll need that storage for Haunted House stuff!
As a rule, I try to shy way from heavy or cumbersome objects, or those made of glass, or otherwise fragile. If I get an odd bit of Amazon spray-foamed packaging, I'm in heaven.
Creating a lab can also add a bit of goofiness and zany fun, if mad scientists are anything, they're the life of the party!

ALIENS
Many of the things you're looking for in a mad scientists lab are things that would also work well in an Alien theme. You can create large structures with relative ease and expense, any weird lights, strobe lights, tubes, hoses, electrical equipment, crazy figures.
You can add moving elements by simply buying a cheap $10 disco glitter ball holder and that'll give you an engine that moves things in a circle. Add that old Lava Lamp, or anything oddly shaped.
Alien masks can be bought cheap and added bodies can be
created, or maybe dump some old cement onto those bags of clothes of yours and make blobby aliens!

Haunted How-To

Our Usual Suspects

Our Haunted Sections, each of which has grown with the Haunted House.

Our first theme, 'Alien Autopsy', fun '50's Alien Craze' theme, which started with a box of alien masks I had leftover from a booksigning.

The Tunnel of Ill-Repair is not a tunnel, it's a wall, but that hasn't stopped people from walking right into it!

Tales of Poe, shreaks of woe, will send you chills from head to toe!

The 'Mad Scientist Table' was started by a neighbors donation of a weird wedding gift, and evolved into 'The Mad Scientists Alley'.

Spiders are inexpensive and fit the Halloween theme.

For the items that didn't really fit anywhere else, but were Halloween themed, The Table of Left Over Horrors was born, a fun stop through the magic and mystery.

Tales of Poe, shrieks of woe! Will chill your soul from head to toe! All of the Poe classics in one place, The Raven, Tell-Tale Heart, complete with beating heart in the floorboards, and more!

The first room, Classic Monsters Chamber, an ode to the greatest legend of classic horrors golden age.

Our false ending, The Tunnel of Ill-Repair. Some see it as a wall, some as a tunnel of dread. Which, do you suppose, gets the bump on the head?

The year of Covid brought one good thing, an extension! The front being Halloween Town!

The Phantom Theater! Based on the legendary Lon Chaney's Phantom character, and the Opera Houe
he haunted! It became too cumbersome, but we're using it in different ways, always reuse, re-invent!