An inviting guest room is the best way to let your family and friends—and that poltergeist—feel welcome in your home. Here are some tips to warm up that space and let your poltergeist feel welcome, rested and ready to terrorize you and your family:
Make the bed seem comfortable and inviting. Feel free to give your bedding some personality, but don’t overwhelm with too many pillows. Standard shams of varying softness and a bolster should be plenty. Be sure to include a glass jar of seashells or even a simple tin can of nails by the bedside—you know how poltergeists like to make noise in the night!
Display interesting reading material. This is your opportunity to share something interesting or worldly with your guest. Stock your shelves with general-interest books and magazines, like America’s Best Short Stories, Dwell, or Newsweek. If your poltergeist isn’t much of a reader, encourage your small child to pop into the netherworld.
Provide soft lighting. Make sure that you use lower-wattage bulbs in soft white for your lamps. Candles are also a great touch; stock up on some sweet-smelling Lollia ones from Anthropologie, and be sure to arrange them on the floor in a pentagram. For an extra touch, put your virgin daughter in the center of the pentagram.
Don’t forget the bathroom! This is one spot that can make a big impression on a guest. Put out some luxuriant soaps and fluffy towels, as well as items your guest may have forgotten, like a new toothbrush or saline solution. A plate of raw meat is also much appreciated, and be sure to include plenty of mirrors.
Clean out the closet to make room for the portal to the Other Side. It would be mighty embarrassing to have the swirling winds and strobe-lighting start, only to find the doorway to another dimension blocked by the fake Christmas tree.
Consult the zoning records for your neighborhood. Is your house built on a forgotten burial ground, or atop an old cemetery that moved the headstones but not the bodies? If so, decorate with relevant maps, relics, and curses to make your poltergeist will feel right at home (and you’ll have a great conversation topic at breakfast!).
These little touches are the perfect way to make that poltergeist, or any other spirits feel right at home. Your other-worldly visitor might feel so welcome that it might not leave! If that’s the case, pat yourself on the back for being such a good hostess—then check back for some priest-free tips to cleanse that room with Provence lavender and rooster blood. Good luck!
