I find it funny that my house could sell for about $450,000 dollars even though its sh*t, imo. I would really like to move, but to move to a house of suitable taste for our family, it would cost around $700,000 - $800,000 for a 3 - 4 bedroom, 2 bathroom, 2 story house. The plus size is that when my dad retires, he could sell the house and move some where with a lower property rate and get a much nicer house, and still have some money left over.
Anywho, now that I'm done talking about how rediculous house prices are, and why that's both bad and good, I will go onto my suggestions of how to build a maze.
First things first. I would come up with a story idea with the house, not a theme[;)] While the story may not neccissarily be very imparent when you do go through the maze, it will definately help you decide good location for your scares, props, ect.
Now that you have done that, I would then design the maze. While it may not be designed with everything engineered to fit perfectly where you want it, you can still get a basic idea of whether or not this will fit in your allotted location. Allow for improvisation. Also, to have you maze designed to be ran by a realistic number of people. For example if I was doing this at my home, i'd lay it out so that way it can be effeciently ran by as few of people as possible, but make sure that you have enough people running around that it will still be fun for your guests. But if you're being supported by a club, or a church, then you can pull people from there to help you with the maze, which is also good because then they could also help you fund it, and build the maze as well.
After that: Experiment. Make sure that you'll be able to pull of everything you want to do. Maybe you'll want to go to the hardware store and buy some a pate and a piece of ply wood. Try making different textures on it, ect. Basically just figure out how exactly your going to build it. Then maybe a couple of weeks before you plan to start operations of your maze, I'd start construction on it. But that's just how I would go about things.
I personally am working on a concept for a maze for my church next year. Though I doubt they'll be able to pull it off, I'm mainly doing it for the fun it. Really I just like designing things. Creating stories and new concepts and different way to entertain people. But even if you don't ever turn your concept into a reality, it will still be cool to see what you come up with.[:)]
After you do that, and you have