Knockturn Alley... In Progress

With Halloween quickly approaching, Husband and I are working on our next escape-room-esque party! We have both always loved Halloween, and after all of the work and props that we have accumulated with Little Tomato's Harry Potter parties, it only makes sense to keep with the wizarding world theme for our October shin-dig. Last year's party was a Horcrux Hunt. This year's theme will be 'Escape from Azkaban.'

In the past, our office has transformed into Diagon Alley. We never included a Knockturn Alley area for our parties. Husband has always wanted to add it - especially with our adult parties in October, it would bring a more dark, Halloween-like, feel to the party. 

Being the crazy couple that we are... we started sketching (and engineering) and measuring (and re-engineering) our idea for converting our office to Knockturn Alley this year. 

* We aren't leaving out Diagon Alley, it's just moving to the dining room. 😉

Insulation foam, hardboard, and random wood we had accumulated in our garage were gathered and construction has begun!

Last year we added built-in bookshelves to our office. We determined it would make a lot of sense to make Knockturn Alley with building exteriors; looking into shop windows rather than walking into a single shop interior. This allows us to cover up (and not remove) most of our books and highlight a few key areas of Dark Arts artifacts. 

First Wall Under Construction:

This is two sheets of 1-1/2" insulation foam. We kept the middle panel a single full sheet to keep structural integrity for the window opening. The other sheet was cut and added to both sides. It is duct-taped on the back to allow the 'wing' sides to fold back to get through our doors - this full panel is approximately 8' x 8' in size. 

I used a heat tool to etch the paneling into the foam. It is intentionally uneven, showing split and warped 'boards.' 

 

We stripped the thin plexiglass cover from a poster picture frame to make window 'glass' which is duct-taped onto the foam opening. Glued on trim later covers the tape. We found a really flimsy cheap gutter cover on clearance at a hardware store and decided to make it into an awning. 

After primer and a first coat... coming along...

After the second coat, I added the window trim and some antiquing wax to the wall to make the 'boards' stand out and look more aged and dirty. It looks especially dirty at the moment, as it is in the garage getting sawdust blown on it from our work on Wall 2. 😜

Second Wall Under Construction: 

We found a brick textured hardboard at the hardware store. This is a 3 dimensional (texture of bricks and grout) 4' x 8' panel. We purchased two of these panels to make a 'building' that would cover our office window. 

The brick pattern was a warm red brick, but it had a very 'new' look to it, so I used a paint medium to thin the black paint used on wall 1 and a natural sponge to make the brick look old and dirty and dingy. 

We built a 2x4 frame to mount the boards and hinged them together, so it will open up to a full 8' x 8' wall for the party and hinge together to store in a tighter footprint (and fit through door frames to get in and out of the office).

Finishing touches are in progress - and wall 3 is beginning!