Yard Plotted to scale, promise

Witch's Brew · Wide Shallow, No Porch

Witch's Brew layout for a Wide Shallow, No Porch

A cauldron going hard, hats hanging in the air and green light coming up out of the ground. It is a scene rather than a scatter of props, so it wants a yard with one spot you can build everything around.

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

Witch's Brew fills 6 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 $250.93 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
$213.16 $36.84 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 54 in. Witch Cauldron on a Tripod (opens in a new tab) Amazon
The star. It stands chest high, so give it sky behind it rather than a hedge. A tripod silhouetted against the house reads from the sidewalk; the same tripod in front of a shrub disappears. The green eyes in the pot are a detail and not a light source, so put a stake in the grass angled up through the legs and let that do the lighting. The legs spread wider than the pot, so keep it a good foot off any path edge.
4' 6" H 1 $31.99
B Pre-Lit Witch Hat Garden Stakes, 3 pack (opens in a new tab) Amazon 3 pieces
Sidekick, left. These stake into the ground rather than hang. Space them unevenly along one side of the walk and use whatever slope you have, so no two sit at the same height. Three hats evenly spaced on level ground stop being a coven and start being runway markers.
1' 11" H 1 $54.99
C 12 in. Solar Jack-o-Lanterns, 2 pack (opens in a new tab) Amazon 2 pieces
Sidekick, right. Right of the door, mirroring the left. Keep it clear of where a car door swings open.
1' H 1 $17.21
D Green Solar Path 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 $25.99
E Orange 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. Over the walk, and dress it with bare twisted branches down both legs rather than anything bought: this theme is a clearing in a wood, not a party. Then hang from the crown, because that is what the arch is for. A lighted hat suspended over the path at head height does what a hat on a stake in the grass cannot, which is float. Tie it by the point so it hangs nose down and can turn in the wind. Keep everything above 6 ft 6 in. and keep the middle of the opening clear. Green light from the far side, aimed back at the road through the arch, so people approaching see the branches in silhouette against it.
7' 4" H 1 $31
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 $40.95 of hardware, on top of the $213.16 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 witch's brew theme. A cauldron going hard, hats hanging in the air and green light coming up out of the ground. It is a scene rather than a scatter of props, so it wants a yard with one spot you can build everything around. Decorations, in position: 1. The star: a black iron tripod standing chest high with a cauldron hanging under it, green eyes glinting inside the pot and cobweb caught across the legs, 4.5 ft tall. It stands chest high, so give it sky behind it rather than a hedge. A tripod silhouetted against the house reads from the sidewalk; the same tripod in front of a shrub disappears. The green eyes in the pot are a detail and not a light source, so put a stake in the grass angled up through the legs and let that do the lighting. The legs spread wider than the pot, so keep it a good foot off any path edge. 2. Sidekick, left: three pointed black witch hats on stakes at knee height, each lit from inside with warm white, 1.9 ft tall. These stake into the ground rather than hang. Space them unevenly along one side of the walk and use whatever slope you have, so no two sit at the same height. Three hats evenly spaced on level ground stop being a coven and start being runway markers. 3. Sidekick, right: two carved pumpkins glowing orange from inside on short stakes, one either side of a step, 1 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 stakes throwing sickly green light up the edges of a path, the color of something radioactive rather than something growing, 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 small orange bulbs following a roofline, warm and slightly sickly rather than festive, 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. Over the walk, and dress it with bare twisted branches down both legs rather than anything bought: this theme is a clearing in a wood, not a party. Then hang from the crown, because that is what the arch is for. A lighted hat suspended over the path at head height does what a hat on a stake in the grass cannot, which is float. Tie it by the point so it hangs nose down and can turn in the wind. Keep everything above 6 ft 6 in. and keep the middle of the opening clear. Green light from the far side, aimed back at the road through the arch, so people approaching see the branches in silhouette against 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: #5B3A7A, #3FA34D, #1C1A22, #D6A419. 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.