Yard Plotted to scale, promise

Nutcrackers · Corner Lot

Nutcrackers layout for a Corner Lot

Guards, not decorations. Red and gold, standing to attention, and the whole thing works on symmetry, which makes it the one theme where lining things up is correct rather than a mistake.

your corner lot, 60′ × 75′ 8 of 12 spots filled
To-scale site plan for a Corner LotA to-scale overhead site plan of a corner lot, 60 feet of street frontage by 75 feet deep, with the house set back 25 feet from the front sidewalk. The street runs along the top of the drawing. 8 of 12 marked positions are filled. Filled: the star; sidekick, left; sidekick, right; path and perimeter lights; the corner moment; roofline and porch; side yard scene; under the porch roof. Left empty: deeper, off to one side; along the eaves; porch posts and rail; the front door. STREETSIDE STREETDRIVEHOUSE60'ABCDEmax 3.5'FGPmax 8'HTRWmax 6.7'

Drawn to scale. Everything is measured in feet from the front sidewalk, and your front door is 80″ tall if you need something to check against.

this theme on this shape

Nutcrackers fills 6 of this shape's 12 marked spots for free, and all of them once every budget is unlocked.

first, the deal with your yard

Read this before you buy anything

You have two front yards now, whether you signed up for that or not. The side gives you 40 to 70 ft of continuous frontage, way more room than a normal lot, and that makes a corner the best possible shape for a big spread-out scene. The trade-offs: anything flat and one-sided is showing its blank back to one of your streets, and wind comes at you from two directions with no neighbor in the way, so every stake and tether that came in the box gets used. The real headache is power. Your outlets are on the house and that corner might be 40 ft away.

Who's looking, and from where

  • Head on from the front sidewalk
  • Head on from the side street
  • The diagonal from the intersection, which is the one everybody actually sees

The classic mistake

Decorating the front door and leaving the whole side street bare. Half the neighborhood sees that side first.

Check this one thing

Most cities cap how tall anything can be in the little triangle by the intersection so drivers can see through it. The number is different everywhere. Look yours up before you fall in love with something 8 ft tall.

same yard, four budgets

Pick your number

Every version below was worked out against the map up there, and nothing gets a spot unless it physically fits. Footprint and height both. The Do it yourself version is free and complete, so you can go do that today. The other three are the paid guide.

Every price below was checked on or after 27 September 2026, and each item carries its own date. Holiday pricing moves weekly.

Do it yourself Free

stays under $250
$228.47 $21.53 to spare

One weekend, a sheet of plywood and some string lights. Costs almost nothing and still stops traffic.

The Do it yourself plan: every piece, its spot on the drawing, how big it is, how many and what it costs.
Spot What to get How big How many Cost
A North Pole Signpost Build it
The star. Dead center on the front walk, 8 to 10 ft back from the porch steps. Pick something with actual sides to it, not a flat cutout. One of your two streets is going to be looking at the back of this.
7' H 1 $38
B 37.5 in. Lighted Nutcracker (opens in a new tab) Amazon
Sidekick, left. One nutcracker at this tier, and place it like a sentry rather than like half of a missing pair: hard against one side of the door or the top of the steps, square on to the street, not floating out on the lawn where the empty side becomes obvious. A second one is the best fifty-six dollars you can add to this theme later, because symmetry is what it runs on.
3' 2" H 1 $53.19
C White Picket Fence Panel, 18 in. x 36 in. (opens in a new tab) Home Depot
Sidekick, right. Right of the walk, mirroring the left one. Same distance out, same height.
1' 6" H 2 $15.94
D Solar Path Light Stakes, 10 pack (opens in a new tab) Amazon 10 pieces
Path and perimeter lights. Both edges of the front walk, then keep the line going along the side yard. Do not stop at the corner of the house. This run is the thing that ties your two street faces together.
1' 3" H 2 $49.38
E 20 in. Flat Tree Yard Decoration (opens in a new tab) Lowe's
The corner moment. Twenty inches, flat, and it is a corner marker rather than a centrepiece. Angle it toward the junction rather than square to the street so both approaches get the front of it, because the back of a flat tree is a sheet of painted board.
1' 8" H 1 $19.98
F Warm White Incandescent Mini Lights, 300 count (opens in a new tab) Amazon 300 pieces
Roofline and porch. One continuous run along both street-facing rooflines. Skipping the side roofline is the number one corner-lot regret.
2" H 2 $51.98
the plug situation

3 things need an outlet, about 2.1 amps all together. That all fits on one 15 amp circuit, you are fine. Outdoor GFCI outlets only, and leave a drip loop in the cord at every plug so rain runs off instead of in.

You will also need

The cord is the part everybody forgets, and stores run out of them at the peak of every season. Outdoor rated only, and plugged into a GFCI outlet.

About $31.96 of hardware, on top of the $228.47 of decorations. Buy it once and it comes back out every year.

Image prompt for this exact list
Photorealistic evening photograph of a two-story suburban house on a corner lot, 60 ft of street frontage with a 25 ft front setback, photographed from the street intersection at a 45 degree diagonal angle so that both the front face and the side face of the house are visible in the same frame, camera height 5.5 ft. The yard is decorated in a nutcrackers theme. Guards, not decorations. Red and gold, standing to attention, and the whole thing works on symmetry, which makes it the one theme where lining things up is correct rather than a mistake. Decorations, in position: 1. The star: a tall red-and-white barber-striped post with four white wooden arrows pointing in different directions, each hand-lettered, topped with a warmly lit white globe, 7 ft tall. Dead center on the front walk, 8 to 10 ft back from the porch steps. Pick something with actual sides to it, not a flat cutout. One of your two streets is going to be looking at the back of this. 2. Sidekick, left: a three foot nutcracker soldier in red and gold tinsel over a metal frame, lit warm from within, standing to attention, 3.2 ft tall. One nutcracker at this tier, and place it like a sentry rather than like half of a missing pair: hard against one side of the door or the top of the steps, square on to the street, not floating out on the lawn where the empty side becomes obvious. A second one is the best fifty-six dollars you can add to this theme later, because symmetry is what it runs on. 3. Sidekick, right: 2 of them, a low run of white wooden pickets pushed into the lawn, knee height, suggesting an edge rather than closing anything in, 1.5 ft tall. Right of the walk, mirroring the left one. Same distance out, same height. 4. Path and perimeter lights: 2 of them, a line of short stake lights glowing softly along the edge of a walkway, no cords running between them, 1.3 ft tall. Both edges of the front walk, then keep the line going along the side yard. Do not stop at the corner of the house. This run is the thing that ties your two street faces together. 5. The corner moment: a small flat cut-out tree standing low in the grass, seen edge on as a thin line and face on as a solid shape, 1.7 ft tall. Twenty inches, flat, and it is a corner marker rather than a centrepiece. Angle it toward the junction rather than square to the street so both approaches get the front of it, because the back of a flat tree is a sheet of painted board. 6. Roofline and porch: 2 of them, a dense run of tiny warm white bulbs following a roofline, close enough together to look like a continuous line of light, 0.2 ft tall. One continuous run along both street-facing rooflines. Skipping the side roofline is the number one corner-lot regret. Shot at dusk with the sky still faintly blue, every lit decoration switched on and brighter than anything else in the frame, warm light spilling onto the lawn. Palette: #B02E2E, #E8B14A, #1F3A5F, #F2EDD8. Nothing floats; every piece sits on the ground at the stated distance. Scale reference: the front door is 80 inches tall.

see it first

The other two prompts

Each budget above has its own prompt for the finished yard, because each one is a different list of things. These two do not change between budgets: one for the empty yard so you have a before picture, and the negative prompt that stops every image model on earth from burying your lawn in snow you did not ask for.

the free ones keep coming

New plans go up through the season

The Do it yourself version above is free and complete, and every theme that goes up gets one, drawn for all ten yard shapes. That is 10 free plans per theme, and the list grows through the season.

One email when there is something new. Nothing else, ever.