HAUNTED HOUSE CEMETERY STONE PILLAR TUTORIAL

A quick tutorial of building 7ft tall cemetery pillars for our front yard Halloween decorations. We've each worked in the haunted house industry set building for over a decade and learned these techniques in that time. These would be just at home in your haunt as they are...well at your home!
Simple plywood box covered with styrofoam, stucco, and latex paint made to look like real stone pillars. Weatherproof and feel real. We spent around $240 on this project and had leftover styrofoam to build tombstones.
Price list @10:37
Amazon affiliate links to some items/materials in video:
Plastic Drop Cloth - www.amazon.com/...
Drywall Screws 3.5" - www.amazon.com/...
Drywall Screws 1.5" - www.amazon.com/...
Drywall Knife - www.amazon.com/...
Stucco - www.amazon.com/...
Chip Brushes - www.amazon.com/...

[@jessebrown6416]

Great video right to the point and no chit chat small talk

[@austingodbey]

Thank you! That's the style I like to watch.

[@johnnyhalloween]

very nice. I tried this and used the stucco color for the mortor color and it looks pretty good. Thanks for the video very informative .

[@austingodbey]

Glad I could help and happy you found it informative! Love spreading info and teaching others!

[@engg3141]

Very well done. Seriously, great job and well described.

[@austingodbey]

Glad you liked it! Been having some issues with our haunt, but will try to make more on other things we make when we get back to it.

[@perrypatterson6696]

Austin you and your wife did a outstanding job. Very informative and detailed. It will help me immensely when I build mine for 2022. Could you possibly tell us a little bit about building your coffin and the effects you used. Again thanks for sharing your experience and knowledge. Thanks

[@austingodbey]

Thanks for the feedback Perry! The coffin is just made out of fence planks I bought at Lowes. I like the color of them and they age well and are treated so they won't rot. I'm planning on putting out a video on I've made them, I just wanted to perfect it a little more for this year. As for the effects, I just paced a light and a fog machine inside of it. The light shinning through the cracks with the fog coming out makes it look really cool.

[@swank1975]

Great tutorial. I'm looking to build a flying ghost for our yard this year and need a column in our front yard for far point on the ghost path. Thinking of building something like this. Thanks for posting.

[@austingodbey]

Thank you so much! Good luck with your build. And FYI if you're in the midwest, Menards sells those flame bulbs 2 for $10. Best deal I've found.
Stay tuned for more videos, we just got news yesterday that our haunt can open in 2022! I'll try to make as many tutorial videos for what we build. Lots of what we do indoors at a pro haunt can be easily adapted for a front yard haunt as well.

[@croft1980]

Awesome job, you both made them look amazing... I couldn't quite make out what you covered the foam to get the stone effect. I don't think we have the same name in the UK.. What was it?

[@austingodbey]

Thanks! We used www.homedepot.com/p/Rapid-Set-25-lb-Stucco-Patch-71020025/203110401 that stuff. Have used www.homedepot.com/p/Quikrete-80-lb-Stucco-Finish-Coat-White-120180/100318472 in the past as well.
It may just be called Exterior plastering in the UK from what I can tell googling for it. Heres a good link explaining them and the differences
www.hunker.com/12601776/difference-between-exterior-plaster-stucco

[@FordFalcon1962nBlue]

can you apply this to wood or latex paint over wood??? i have some pillars i would like to repaint but with texture

[@austingodbey]

I forgot to mention in the video this is what we did on the back. @8:47 you can see the back plywood panel, that's just latex paint mixed with stucco and then dry brushed.

[@FordFalcon1962nBlue]

oh ok thanks! i was thinking also about using stucco mix to fill in gaps in tombstones i make- ive used spackling and find it doesn't really work well, i saw this video again and realized you used a thicker mix to fill in the gaps and holes in the foam- bet it works far better than spackling and looks better

[@catmccracken798]

I live some where quite windy. How do you suggest that I keep it from falling over?

[@austingodbey]

We used 6ft metal fence stakes into the ground behind them. Also opened them up and put weight on the bottom to make them less top heavy. On a particular gusty day they almost fell over so we put a 2x4 across the top connecting the two. It seemed to help stabilize them. They were up for a month or two on the front range in Colorado. Wind gusts of 60mph+ regularly and heavy wet snow. They held up fine.

[@catmccracken798]

Austin Godbey thanks so much!