Halloween is a really fun time of year, but for most consumers, it has also become a very expensive holiday. Last year, the National Retail Federation estimated that American consumers would spend a whopping $6.9 billion on Halloween candy, costumes and decorations.

Americans are absolutely batty about Halloween, and spending for the holiday's festivities is second only to Christmas. Don't get spooked -- you can have a great Halloween without spending an arm and a leg. These DIY decorations are both easy and inexpensive. Get your little ghouls and goblins involved to make some lasting memories and teach them how to spend money wisely in the process. Dress up your front porch or stoop with these creative DIY ideas.

(Photo: Shutterstock)

A man-eating pumpkin. Jazz up a jack o' lantern -- the old Halloween stand-by -- to a new eerie delight with items you already have around the house. First, carve a face into a pumpkin. For the best look, give your pumpkin some jagged teeth or fangs. Then, grab an old sock,

A lower monthly payment is great, but only if you can truly afford it. But how do you decide if you can afford a refinance? There's more than just interest to consider -- costs and fees add up quickly, and they could wind up nearly wiping out the benefit of a slightly lower interest rate.

Some of the costs to keep in mind when thinking about a refinance include the following.

Private mortgage insurance (PMI). Whether or not you pay PMI depends on your loan-to-value (LTV) ratio. Generally, a LTV ratio of 80 percent or more requires PMI.  So if you're taking out an $80,000 loan on a home that's worth $100,000, you'll need PMI.

The cost of PMI reduces the initial savings on a refinance, but it also helps you lock in a lower interest rate long-term. In some cases, you can cancel PMI when you reach 20 percent equity in your home.

Average cost: Generally 1 to 2 percent of the outstanding loan amount divided by 12.

Points. The lower your interest rate, the more you'll pay in closing costs and

(Photo credit: Doug Wong via the Cloud website)This stunning interactive sculpture, called simply "Cloud," was built by Caitlind r.c. Brown and Wayne Garrett of 6,000 light bulbs, most of them burned-out incandescents. It's lit by a core of 250 compact fluorescents on pull-chains.

The scale makes this installation inexpressibly beautiful, especially as the crowd discovers how to coordinate turning it on and off (see the video below; for photos of its construction, go to the Incandescent Cloud blog). And I admit that you're unlikely to be able to pull off anything nearly so big.

But I wonder whether you might be able to create something like it on a much smaller scale in your own home -- perhaps surrounding a CFL or two with a dozen or so burned-out clear or semi-opaque incandescents for a unique pendant lamp? (She says only 1 in 6 bulbs actually needs to glow.)

I'd love to hear about it in the comments if you try out anything like this -- and even better, add photos to Yahoo! Homes' Flickr group so that I can post about it later.

A story about 10 of the hottest kitchen counter-top materials, currently on the Yahoo! homepage, seems to have struck a chord with Yahoo! Homes readers. The comments section is buzzing with homeowners' accounts of their own experiences with materials like stainless steel and poured concrete.

In fact, we're finding so many of the comments useful that we thought we'd dedicate a blog post to organizing some of them, so that you don't have comb through hundreds of observations to find ones relevant to your own questions. We do acknowledge, though, that we're taking commenters at their word on their identities and experiences. Don't consider this a scientific sampling!

Feel free to add more in the comments below or on the original article.

Note: We've lightly edited these, mostly for length and grammar (though we're sure we've missed some misspellings and such). We've tried to stick to comments from people who seemed to have personal knowledge of the materials they mentioned.

Expert

The first time I recall removing wallpaper -- to put up other wallpaper -- was because we were interviewing a new babysitter for our 6-year old daughter.

You'll have to ask my wife why redoing the living room wallpaper all day Saturday was such a high priority to impress the babysitter;  but as I had been slow to tackle the redecorating project, I suspect my wife simply seized the occasion to motivate our efforts.

Urgent as our wallpaper project was, I still think I got off easy compared with another couple I know who once struggled to build a new deck over a weekend becasue the "in-laws" were coming for a stay (talk about project motivation!).

Chances are you're facing a wallpaper removal project because you've recently bought a home with '70s glam wallpaper that won't quit, and it lines everything from the foyer to the family room. The designs probably make your eyes hurt, so the offending wallpaper must come down, like yesterday.

If you're new to wallpapering -- and the medium is

Use area rugs to add a pop of color and swap them from room to room wherever you wish (Photo: Shutterstock)
I'm looking around my house at my floor decor, and while I realize we have standard wall-to-wall carpet upstairs, our downstairs living space is peppered with custom area rugs.

They help define a space and enliven a room. Whenever we're bored, we simply change the rugs to suit our mood.

Even better, area rugs are an easy way to bring some of the latest design trends into your home. They're functional, not as permanent as paint and can be purchased relatively inexpensively if you shop around.

You can add a pop of color you might be too afraid to use somewhere else, and swap rugs from room to room depending on your mood.

Make sure an area rug under a coffee table has space between seating on opposite sides (Photo: Shutterstock)
One consideration to remember: When choosing a rug, size matters.

"If you're thinking about a rug for your living room or family room, get one that's big enough to go beyond the coffee table," designer Angelo Surmelis says in a video for Overstock.com. "You want it to go between the first set of legs on your sofa on one side and the first set of legs on your chairs on

This display shelf, tucked into the corner where two walls meet, is made by The Fundamental Shop and dubbed A Few of My Favourite Things. But beyond being a display of museum-worthy objects, the shelf itself is a work of art. This is from the product description:

"A feature of solid wood in this scale is that as it expands and contracts with the seasons, cracks will develop and grow, adding character and depth of texture to this piece as it matures. These do not affect structural integrity."

I find that concept really beautiful, especially as customer Derek of Ireland describes it on the site:

"The first night I had the piece in my apartment, it kept me up at night, the wood creaking as it adjusted to the warmth of my apartment. The morning after, it released the most amazing smell of resin. A phenomenal object."

The double shelf, pictured at top, sells for 240 euros, or about $310, and the inset photo of a "plug-in module" for tiny objects is 58 euros, or about $75.

The German company

OK, maybe I got you to smirk a bit with my suggestive headline, but now that you're reading, I do have some serious safety tips to share for your next project involving wiring anything.

I recall launching into my first home decor electrical installation -- hanging a ceiling fan -- only to be stopped dead in my tracks (strike that, poor choice of words) with a wiring issue. Please tell me this kind of situation has happened to you, just so I'll feel better.

I've taken the fancy fan out of its box, spread the parts (small or large) and instruction papers all over the floor, climbed my folding ladder with the fan propped on my shoulder, pulled out the fan connection wires to attach it to the ceiling, and found myself staring dumbfounded at the jumble of celing junction box wires. (Blame it on the previous homeowner's hack job, I always say.)

My fan instructions tell me to connect its wires to the ceiling junction box wires as such: white to white, black to black, and green to grounding.