How to Decorate for a Minimalist Halloween
Ever thought of revitalizing your home with a fresh layer of cobwebs and warty pumpkins? This Halloween, we’d love to help you hop on the minimalist décor trend with these tips to subtly transform your space into a ghoulish domicile.
Minimalism is the art of curating an area to showcase the bare essentials with the perfect accent or statement pieces to emphasize the expanse of a room. Taking on a minimal approach can give your home an understated refresh, and it will make your seasonal decor the focal point of your space this October!
Just because you love goblins and ghosts doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice your minimal mindset. With a less is more approach, your home will be stylishly spooky in no time.
Stick to the Bare Necessities
Maximize your space by minimizing your clutter buildup throughout your home. Start by removing unnecessary year-round décor that could impede the flow of the space you’re working with. Replace tabletop items with your chosen Halloween décor for clutter-free festivities. Beginning your decorating process with a squeaky clean (minus a few authentic cobwebs, perhaps) mantle top, dining table, kitchen counter, or bookshelf space can help you determine what’s necessary and what’s not.
Can’t seem to get rid of your favorite coffee table or entryway table décor without the space feeling too bare? Make your existing décor part of your Halloween tablespace, and use your bust of Shakespeare or the Greek Diana as part of the decoration. Or, utilize your favorite stack of coffee table books as the base for a spooky skeleton head to create a subtle, yet festive focal point.
Focus Pocus
Minimalism is all about making a statement with space, lighting, and objects. Select several focal points around your home where you’d like to draw the most attention, such as your entryway table, fireplace mantle, or dining table. These are the areas that you will turn to during your decorating process, so that your home isn’t overflowing with unnecessary holiday clutter.
Create structure around your chosen focal points by displaying only a few pieces of simple décor that will make the biggest impact in that area. For example, if your entryway table is your focal point, place a skull on one end and a set of tapered candles on the other, leaving the middle blank. Make sure to leave plenty of white space at every focal point so your visitors know exactly where and what they’re supposed to be looking at.
Create A Theme
Maybe you’re cuckoo for cobwebs or crows. Or perhaps you think skeletons are scariest. Either way, choosing a theme to implement throughout your home for Halloween can create a more uniform, minimalist vibe. Choose two or three of your favorite spooky themes, and decorate different focal areas with your chosen elements in mind.
Craft a colony of construction paper creatures emerging from your fireplace or kitchen pantry, and sprawl realistic-looking spiderwebs across other areas in your Halloween-inspired lair. To embrace a witchy vibe, label amber glass bottles with “potions,” like “eye of newt,” or “wolf fang” along your mantle, and pick a spot to fill a cauldron with pumpkins or an autumnal floral arrangement.
Be Subtly Spooky
While you don’t have to hide your love for all things Halloween in a minimalist home, you can subtly place spooky elements throughout different spots to amp up the festive feels without being too obnoxious or over-the-top. Steer clear of any ornate décor, and stick with simple statements that complement the understated style of your space.
Style a cauldron at your entryway table with an arrangement of dried plants and festive flowers, or fill it with black and white pumpkins. Or, use your entryway tabletop space to your advantage, and create a spread of various-sized apothecary jars filled with miniature pumpkins, dried grass, candy corn, or small skulls.
Minimize the Use of Color
Take a page from the book of contemporary Scandinavian design and embrace your inner minimalist with colorless décor this October. While Halloween may spin tales of bright orange jack-‘o-lanterns and purple striped witch’s stockings, minimal spaces tend to emphasize the lack of color. To really adopt this trend into your home, consider refreshing your Halloween décor to reflect a more neutral palette, and stick to shades of white and black to add contrast to your home.
Displaying only two shades this October will make your seasonal décor appear less cluttered, and more put-together. Opt for black cobwebs to create a stark contrast between white décor, or cover furniture with white sheets to invoke an abandoned mansion vibe. Reach for the white pumpkins instead of the orange or yellow ones, and display several haunting, half-melted white candles on modern black candelabra to keep the minimalism, and spook factor, at a maximum.
Stick to Statement Pieces
Revitalize your once drab décor and choose only a few statement pieces to display in your home this Halloween. A minimalist mindset can lend a refreshing take to any décor, and transform a space into something more modern and exciting. By choosing several objects that complement the space of your abode, your October décor will exude style and class.
If you’re a sucker for symmetry, leveled items will curate a sleek tone throughout your home. Drape cobwebs over tapered candles of the same height on your mantle or entryway table, or an even line of framed Halloween prints in your hallway. If you’d like to add an umph to your spooky décor by playing with dimension, display a cluster of pumpkins on your mantle, and a large print, or group of tall candles on the other side so the dynamic of the two pieces of varying height create an artsy, eye-catching statement with minimal effort.
Get Wordy
A picture may be worth a thousand words, but sometimes you really only need select few words to get the point across. Décor that delivers a clever punch line or a play on words is the perfect statement piece to complement your minimalist décor.
Carve or paint your pumpkins to display a simple phrase, like “BOO,” or “EEK,” or use painted miniature pumpkins to spell out your last name, or a witchy phrase, like “WICKED.” If you’re feeling extra punny, fashion your letterboard to display a ghoulish phrase, like “Creepin’ it Real,” or “The Only Thing Getting Lit this Halloween is my Black Flame Candle.”
Pro tip: painted pumpkins look extra modern and sleek for the most minimalist vibe.
We’d love to see your ghostly digs this season, so tag us on Instagram if you decide to try our tips to subtly up the spook factor in your home this Halloween!