Forget the inflatable lawn pumpkins, dollar-store spider web, and skeleton window stickers: there are higher-design ways to introduce a little Halloween flavour to your home. We scoped out some local furnishing stores for hits of black and orange, and found a few haunting creatures featured along the way.

Seasonal Sculptures

Moe’s Home Collection (1728 Glen Drive) has some sleek fibreglass creations that are perfect for your hallway’s console or your mantel. Everyone needs a black cat for Halloween, and Moe’s high-gloss-lacquer walking lion is the perfect retro feline ($115). Measuring just over 18 inches, it’ll remind you of that old B.C. Film Classification “Restricted” cat. Cuter, but no less cool, is the fibrestone orange pumpkin: at 15 inches in diameter, it’s a shiny centrepiece that won’t start to rot like that bowl of gourds you had in mind ($139). We like its organic, pear shape as a foil to a streamlined table, and watch the way it pops in a neutral-grey room or set against the witching season’s black and white.

Creepy Cushions

Try tossing a subtly themed pillow onto the sofa for a seasonal feel. Sure, skeletons and witches are spooky, but how Halloween is an owl? Urban Barn’s toss cushion, emblazoned with a photo of the feathered friend ($36, various locations), brings a little woodsy wildlife into your room. With his blazing orange-yellow eyes, we like this guy combined with other pillows in solid shades. Elsewhere, at IKEA (various locations), go for a retro-mod graphic effect with the square Björnloka Figur cushion cover ($5.99) in geometric orange, white, and grey on a black background. Put it on a neutral-grey sofa, then switch it up for something wintry after fall is over.

Skull Love

Deck out your home in true Day of the Dead fashion with a few smartly placed skulls. We like the festive skeleton face on Pier 1 Imports’ (various locations) simple Skull Silkscreen LED Candle (on sale for $11.88). Put it on a timer, and it will be there, glowing ominously, to greet you when you come home after dark. If you want a real flame to light, opt for Pottery Barn’s (2600 Granville Street) sinister solid-black skull-shaped candle, eerily anatomically sized ($19.97 on sale, at last check). In the bathroom, put a scare into houseguests with Urban Barn’s cool white ceramic hand-soap pump ($19). Come to think of it, we’d leave that one out long after Halloween.

It’s All in the horns

And speaking of skulls, the nonhuman, horned variety can look just as eerily hip hanging from your wall. The selection at Restoration Hardware (2555 Granville Street) is stunning, with rugged and realistic steer horns in cast resin (on sale for $159), some with cool cast-aluminum skulls. There are other similarly cast versions, from ridge antelope horns to Texas longhorns (about $119 up to about $400). At Moe’s, check out the bronze Bull Head I ($465), which has its own stand and sits on a buffet or console. With its spiralling horns, it’ll guard against any evil spirits Allhallow’s Eve can throw at you.