Today I stray ever so slightly from the homebuilding topic, although it relates to a post in which I wrote about tree faces some time ago. That particular article has been a fairly popular post over a long period of time for a number of different reasons. Tree faces make great year-round landscape decorations and folks like to go crazy with them in some very creative ways around the Halloween season, too.

Am I out of my mind?! ....well, let's move on. I know it may seem a bit odd that I'm writing about tree faces and Halloween in late April but I happened to see something this past weekend that you don't see every day that made it relevant.

I've been waiting for months for the opportunity to re-visit the historic Tate House, a.k.a. The Pink Palace, in Tate, Georgia. After I received an invitation back in May for a private tour from owner Marsha Mann, all of the stars were finally aligned in my favor, as it were, and I was able to make the one hour trip to The Tate House with my trusty little camera in hand (after a lengthy stay in the shop). : (

I purposely waited a few weeks after getting my camera out of the shop to make the journey to the Pink Palace again because I thought a visit while it was decorated for the Christmas season would be especially memorable...and I was right.

Without further ado...I invite you to Christmas at The Pink Palace!

This is part 2 of our experience attending the Marietta Pilgrimage Christmas Home Tour from 2007.

Here is the first part of our visit to the Marietta Pilgrimage: A Christmas Home Tour if you want to begin there first and then come back here afterwards.

The Marietta Pilgrimage Christmas Home Tour is an annual event showcasing historical private homes and buildings decorated for the Christmas holiday season...inside and out. The homes and buildings vary from year-to-year (this is the 21st year of the tour) so the Pilgrimage is one of the highlights of the season for many. This year the six private homes on the tour were concentrated in the Northwest Marietta Historic District and ten historical buildings were featured, as well.

As you may have guessed, I've got a few photos and details to share of the 2007 Marietta Pilgrimage.

Have your kids been little stinkers lately? Ground 'em for Halloween!

That'll teach them a lesson!

Here's a unique Halloween yard decoration that I've kept (unintentional) tabs on for the past couple of years. It's displayed in a subdivision just down the street from ours and I have yet to have seen any other yard with anything quite like it.

I've found that decorating your home for Halloween is an ongoing process. Everywhere I look on the web, I see where people have their own Halloween yard and home decorations chronicled on a year-by-year basis and often cataloged by prop so that we can see the steady improvements and additions being made.

People are more than proud to show the world, as well. Who could blame them. It's a lot of hard work, in many cases, to come up with props that will scare the pants off of kids and adults alike. It takes time to see what works and what doesn't.

I've found an eerily grotesque amount of home-grown Halloween websites with some really cool ideas and a few corny ideas just for fun. All with the main focus of having a good..but scary time.

Would you like to put your home handyman skills to the test this coming Halloween? If you're the DIY type and you enjoy scaring the kiddies at Halloween, I've 'dug up' some great links to all sorts of scare the pants off of 'em yard props and 'killer' decorations that you can build yourself.

I'm talking about skeletons (Bucky's), torsos, hands, flying crank ghosts, skulls, zombies, spooky audio effects, lighting and fog techniques (some very detailed), demons, gargoyles and all manner of creatures and devices.

Some of these Halloween props are simple enough for beginners and others are rather involved but well worth the fun of building them yourself for a fraction of the cost of store-bought.

Come along as you prepare to greet your guests properly for Fright Night!