Yard Plotted to scale, promise

Nutcrackers · Wide Shallow, No Porch

Nutcrackers layout for a Wide Shallow, No Porch

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 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

Nutcrackers fills 5 of this shape's 9 marked spots for free, and all of them once every budget is unlocked.

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.

The one nice thing version comes in at $342.02 against a $500 ceiling on this shape, which leaves real room for a second run of lights or a better centrepiece.

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
$183.80 $66.20 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 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 door, mirroring the left. Keep it clear of where a car door swings open.
1' 6" H 2 $15.94
D Solar Path Light Stakes, 10 pack (opens in a new tab) Amazon 10 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' 3" H 1 $24.69
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
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 $183.80 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 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. 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 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 door, mirroring the left. Keep it clear of where a car door swings open. 4. Walk and bed edge lights: a line of short stake lights glowing softly along the edge of a walkway, no cords running between them, 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. 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.