Attention all muggles and wizards!
If you hop aboard the Hogwarts Express (your own magical car), head to Hogsmeade Station (Hazel Street and Portage Avenue), you will be transported to A Harry Potter Christmas.
Katharine and Johnathan Wall have been working since the beginning of 2019 transforming their Chilliwack house into a scene straight out of a Harry Potter movie.
The couple first revealed their creative masterpiece for Halloween. Fans flocked to their house where more than 500 kids and 1,000 adults came to check it out. Some even drove out from Vancouver until the late hours of Halloween night, dressed in Harry Potter costumes, to see the house and take selfies in their “Have you seen this wizard?” picture frame.
“The kids were excited, but it surprised me how excited the adults were,” Katharine said.
Now, they’ve removed the creepy crawlies from the front lawn – like spiders in the Forbidden Forest – and installed a Quidditch pitch and castle. The cobwebs had been peeled off the gravestone and wreaths have been laid in their place.
All of their hand-made designs and decorations are as true to the movies as possible.
The Walls have visited The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios many times, and it’s because of those trips to movieland that they were able to replicate the magical world of wizards for fans here at home.
“We try to stay as close as possible to the designs and the shops that were in the movie,” she said.
Along the front of their house, the couple built a façade featuring storefronts as seen in Diagon Alley, the windows decorated with Christmas lights and ornaments.
But it’s not just the outside of their house that’s been transformed. The inside is decorated, too, and the public is welcome to take a look at it this weekend all while helping out the local food bank.
“We were just going to have the open house and then I thought why not encourage people to bring donations for the food bank and do something good while having people through our house,” she said.
This isn’t the first time the Walls have gone all out decorating for Halloween and Christmas. Last year, their theme was A Nightmare Before Christmas.
READ MORE: Uniquely decorated Chilliwack home combines Halloween and Christmas
This year, their living room has been transformed into the Gryffindor common room complete with a Christmas tree and presents. And their dining room is now the Hogwarts banquet room where the Walls will be cooking a full spread of real food (because it’s cheaper than fake food) a week before Christmas, all for show.
Between the two of them they’ve put more than 300 hours into their Harry Potter house, and that’s just within the 10 weeks leading up to Christmas. They approached Blackwood Building Centre in Abbotsford where a family member works, and it’s thanks to a discount from the hardware store that the Walls were able to make their display more elaborate than originally planned.
The Walls are now putting the final touches on their Harry Potter house as it’ll be open to the public this Friday.
People can check out A Harry Potter Christmas at 9703 Hazel St. The lights are on from approximately 4:30 p.m. to 10 p.m. daily.
They will be opening the inside of their house this weekend for three days: Dec. 20, 21 and 22 from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. Admission is by donation of non-perishable food or cash for the local food bank.
They also have a Harry Potter themed raffle basket. Tickets are $1 each with all proceeds also going to the food bank.
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