Yard Plotted to scale, promise

The Old Cemetery · Deep Narrow

The Old Cemetery layout for a Deep Narrow

Leaning stones, an iron fence with a gap in it, and candles along a path that nobody has swept in years. The one Halloween theme with nothing alive in it, which is what makes people slow down instead of laugh.

your deep narrow, 42′ × 30′ 7 of 10 spots filled
To-scale site plan for a Deep NarrowA to-scale overhead site plan of a deep narrow, 42 feet of street frontage by 95 feet deep, with the house set back 55 feet from the front sidewalk. The street runs along the top of the drawing. 7 of 10 marked positions are filled. Filled: the star; sidekick, left; sidekick, right; the approach lights; roofline and porch; the halfway moment; under the porch roof. Left empty: along the eaves, porch posts and rail, the front door. STREETDRIVEHOUSE42'ABmax 7'Cmax 7'DEFPmax 8'TRWmax 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

The Old Cemetery fills 5 of this shape's 10 marked spots for free, and all of them once every budget is unlocked.

One of the pieces here is rated by its maker for covered use only, and this shape has a spot under a roof to put it, which is why it can be in the plan at all.

first, the deal with your yard

Read this before you buy anything

Distance is the whole problem. Your house sits 55 ft back and most decorations are sized for a yard a third of that, so everything you buy needs to be bigger than instinct says. The upside is that you can layer front to back, which nobody with a shallow yard can do. Give yourself something near the sidewalk, something in the middle and something at the house, and the yard has depth instead of one distant bright spot. Extension cord length stops being a detail and becomes the budget.

Who's looking, and from where

  • The long view straight up the walk from the sidewalk
  • The compressed view from directly across the street
  • Walking up the path, where the middle layer is at eye level

The classic mistake

Putting everything up by the house where you can see it from the front door. From the street it collapses into one small cluster with 40 ft of empty lawn in front of it.

Check this one thing

A long run of outdoor cord wants a heavier gauge than the one in your garage. Look for 14 gauge or thicker for anything over 50 ft, and keep the connections up off wet ground.

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
$213.94 $36.06 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 Plywood Tombstones Build it
The star. Lean them. A stone standing straight looks like a sign; a stone tipped four or five degrees looks like the ground moved under it. Vary the angle and vary the depth they sit at. Group them unevenly, with two close together and one apart. Cemeteries are laid out in rows and then two hundred years happen to them, and it is the two hundred years you are building.
2' H 1 $28
B Lighted Graveyard Fence, 8 panels (opens in a new tab) Amazon 8 pieces
Sidekick, left. Eight panels, and the run matters more than the count. Set it along the front of the plot rather than around it, so people read a boundary they are looking over instead of a box. Leave one panel out. A continuous fence says the place is maintained.
11" H 1 $53.99
C 17 in. Weathered Tombstones, 5 pack (opens in a new tab) Amazon 5 pieces
Sidekick, right. Five at 17 in., which is small, and small is right here: these are the stones further back that give the plot depth. Put them BEHIND the big ones and slightly off to one side. Do not line them up with the tall stones. Two sizes at two distances is what makes a lawn look like it goes back further than it does.
1' 5" H 1 $23.99
D Purple Solar Path Stakes, 10 pack (opens in a new tab) Amazon 10 pieces
The approach lights. Both sides of the walk for the last 36 ft up to the door. You do not need to light the whole 55 ft. Starting the run partway up pulls the eye toward the house instead of stopping it at the sidewalk.
1' 3" H 2 $55.98
E Orange Incandescent Mini Lights, 300 count (opens in a new tab) Amazon 300 pieces
Roofline and porch. Gutter line and porch. Use the biggest bulb you are willing to buy. At this distance small twinkle lights turn into a faint smudge.
2" H 2 $51.98
the plug situation

2 things need an outlet, about 2.2 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 $213.94 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 colonial house on a deep narrow, 42 ft of street frontage with a 55 ft front setback, photographed from the sidewalk at the front lot line looking straight up the long walk toward the house, showing the full depth of the yard, camera height 5.5 ft. The yard is decorated in a the old cemetery theme. Leaning stones, an iron fence with a gap in it, and candles along a path that nobody has swept in years. The one Halloween theme with nothing alive in it, which is what makes people slow down instead of laugh. Decorations, in position: 1. The star: a small group of gray weathered headstones at three different heights, leaning at slightly different angles, one of them broken off short, 2 ft tall. Lean them. A stone standing straight looks like a sign; a stone tipped four or five degrees looks like the ground moved under it. Vary the angle and vary the depth they sit at. Group them unevenly, with two close together and one apart. Cemeteries are laid out in rows and then two hundred years happen to them, and it is the two hundred years you are building. 2. Sidekick, left: a low run of black fence panels staked along a bed edge, purple and orange light in the rails, the line of it bending rather than straight, 0.9 ft tall. Eight panels, and the run matters more than the count. Set it along the front of the plot rather than around it, so people read a boundary they are looking over instead of a box. Leave one panel out. A continuous fence says the place is maintained. 3. Sidekick, right: five gray foam headstones at slightly different heights and leaning at different angles, mossy and cracked, 1.4 ft tall. Five at 17 in., which is small, and small is right here: these are the stones further back that give the plot depth. Put them BEHIND the big ones and slightly off to one side. Do not line them up with the tall stones. Two sizes at two distances is what makes a lawn look like it goes back further than it does. 4. The approach lights: 2 of them, a line of short stakes throwing cold purple light up the edges of a walkway, no cords between them, 1.3 ft tall. Both sides of the walk for the last 36 ft up to the door. You do not need to light the whole 55 ft. Starting the run partway up pulls the eye toward the house instead of stopping it at the sidewalk. 5. Roofline and porch: 2 of them, a dense run of small orange bulbs following a roofline, warm and slightly sickly rather than festive, 0.2 ft tall. Gutter line and porch. Use the biggest bulb you are willing to buy. At this distance small twinkle lights turn into a faint smudge. 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: #8C93A8, #2A2633, #7E8B6A, #E4DCC8. 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.