Yard Plotted to scale, promise

The North Pole · Wide Shallow, No Porch

The North Pole layout for a Wide Shallow, No Porch

Signposts, candy stripes, toy soldiers and a little workshop situation. This one is a whole place rather than a single motif, so it loves a yard with room to spread out and more than one thing to look at.

your wide shallow, no porch, 75′ × 28′ 6 of 9 spots filled
To-scale site plan for a Wide Shallow, No PorchA to-scale overhead site plan of a wide shallow, no porch, 75 feet of street frontage by 48 feet deep, with the house set back 18 feet from the front sidewalk. The street runs along the top of the drawing. 6 of 9 marked positions are filled. Filled: the star; sidekick, left; sidekick, right; walk and bed edge lights; roofline; past the driveway. Left empty: deeper, off to one side; along the eaves; the front door. STREETDRIVEHOUSE75'Amax 10'Bmax 7'Cmax 7'DEFHmax 7'TWmax 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 North Pole fills 6 of this shape's 9 marked spots for free, and 7 of them once every budget is unlocked.

With everything unlocked, two spots stay empty because this theme has no piece written for that kind of spot: along the eaves, the front door.

This shape has nowhere under a roof, so anything the maker rates for covered use only is left out rather than placed somewhere it would not survive the season.

first, the deal with your yard

Read this before you buy anything

A wide flat facade is a billboard, and a bare one looks very bare. You have plenty of frontage but almost no depth, which means layering front to back is off the table and you build side to side instead. Without a porch there is no natural frame around the door, so the entry disappears unless you build one. The other quiet problem is the driveway. It usually takes up a third of your frontage and it is the first thing headlights hit.

Who's looking, and from where

  • Straight on from the street, the whole facade at once
  • From the driveway, walking toward the door
  • The long oblique down the block, where the roofline is all you see

The classic mistake

Lining everything up in one flat row parallel to the house. It turns your yard into a store display. Stagger the depths even a few feet.

Check this one thing

If your walk comes off the driveway, keep the flanking pieces out of the backing path. Every year somebody reverses over a light-up reindeer.

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
$189.96 $60.04 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. Centered on the front door, 8 ft out. Without a porch to anchor to, this piece is the only thing telling people where the entrance is.
7' H 1 $38
B Giant Peppermint Candy Stakes Build it
Sidekick, left. Left of the door, 10 to 12 ft out from the centerpiece. Push these further apart than feels right. A wide facade eats the gap.
3' H 1 $22
C 21 in. Lighted Candy Canes, 10 pack (opens in a new tab) Amazon 10 pieces
Sidekick, right. Split the four canes into two pairs, one either side of the walk, leaning slightly outward.
1' 9" H 1 $20.99
D Candy Cane Pathway Markers, 12 pack (opens in a new tab) Amazon 12 pieces
Walk and bed edge lights. Along the short connector from the driveway to the door, then following the front bed. The walk is stubby here, so borrow the bed line to make the run long enough to matter.
1' 4" H 1 $25.99
E Warm White Incandescent Mini Lights, 300 count (opens in a new tab) Amazon 300 pieces
Roofline. The full run, gutter line and both gable rakes. This is the single biggest thing you can do to a wide flat house, and it is the one people skip because it means getting the ladder out.
2" H 2 $51.98
F Bare Arch, Dressed Build it
Past the driveway. Wrap both legs in candy stripe, barber pole fashion. Red tape or weatherproof ribbon spiralled up bare metal costs a couple of dollars and reads better from the road than anything moulded. This theme is a whole place rather than a motif, and a place needs a way in: put the arch at the sidewalk end of the walk rather than up near the house, so people pass through it on the way in and everything else in the yard is inside. A sign on the crown if you have one, and nothing else on it.
7' 4" H 1 $31
the plug situation

3 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 $189.96 of decorations. Buy it once and it comes back out every year.

Image prompt for this exact list
Photorealistic evening photograph of a single-story brick ranch house on a wide shallow, no porch, 75 ft of street frontage with a 18 ft front setback, photographed from the street directly in front of the house, far enough back that the entire wide facade and the driveway are both in frame, camera height 5.5 ft. The yard is decorated in a the north pole theme. Signposts, candy stripes, toy soldiers and a little workshop situation. This one is a whole place rather than a single motif, so it loves a yard with room to spread out and more than one thing to look at. 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. Centered on the front door, 8 ft out. Without a porch to anchor to, this piece is the only thing telling people where the entrance is. 2. Sidekick, left: a cluster of oversized red-and-white spiral peppermint candy discs on stakes at staggered heights, angled toward the street, 3 ft tall. Left of the door, 10 to 12 ft out from the centerpiece. Push these further apart than feels right. A wide facade eats the gap. 3. Sidekick, right: a row of glowing red and white striped candy canes staked along a path at knee height, 1.8 ft tall. Split the four canes into two pairs, one either side of the walk, leaning slightly outward. 4. Walk and bed edge lights: a run of short red-and-white candy cane stakes glowing along both edges of a walkway at even spacing, 1.3 ft tall. Along the short connector from the driveway to the door, then following the front bed. The walk is stubby here, so borrow the bed line to make the run long enough to matter. 5. Roofline: 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. The full run, gutter line and both gable rakes. This is the single biggest thing you can do to a wide flat house, and it is the one people skip because it means getting the ladder out. 6. Past the driveway: a metal garden arch over a front path at night, dressed down both sides so it reads as a gap in something rather than as a frame, people walking through it, 7.3 ft tall. Wrap both legs in candy stripe, barber pole fashion. Red tape or weatherproof ribbon spiralled up bare metal costs a couple of dollars and reads better from the road than anything moulded. This theme is a whole place rather than a motif, and a place needs a way in: put the arch at the sidewalk end of the walk rather than up near the house, so people pass through it on the way in and everything else in the yard is inside. A sign on the crown if you have one, and nothing else on it. 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: #C8102E, #FFFFFF, #F0A44A, #8FB8D8. 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.