Ideas & guides · Plan your yard
Decorating a Narrow Front Yard With a Porch
Small lot, about forty feet across, with a covered porch. Everything I like in the shop looks enormous once it is out on the lawn. What actually fits?
Almost nothing over about six feet, and far less of it than you think. On a fifteen foot setback the viewer is twenty feet away, so pieces are read at close range where detail matters and size stops helping. Spend on the porch, which is a lit frame at eye level that no flat lawn can match, and keep the lawn to two or three modest pieces that do not block it.
5 minute read.
Close range changes what is worth buying
Fifteen feet of setback means a person on the sidewalk is about twenty feet from your front wall. That is close. At twenty feet a moulded face has features, a fabric seam is visible, and a cheaply printed surface looks cheaply printed.
On a deep lot none of that matters, because everything is read as a silhouette from sixty feet and the only questions are how big it is and whether it is lit. On this shape the questions reverse. Detail and finish carry the display, and raw size stops buying you anything at about six feet because you cannot get far enough back to take a taller piece in.
The practical version: on a narrow lot, one well-made four foot piece beats two rough seven foot ones, and it is usually cheaper.
This is the shape
Forty feet, drawn to scale
Narrow Shallow with Porch, 40 ft of frontage, Spiders, Spiders, Spiders at One nice thing. 6 spots filled, $148.94 of a $500 ceiling.
The porch spots do the close-range work and the lawn stays deliberately sparse. Note how little of the frontage the star occupies: on this shape the temptation is to fill the lot, and filling it is what makes it feel smaller.
The porch is the asset, so do not block it
A covered porch gives you three things a lawn cannot. A roof, so anything rated for covered outdoor use is available to you and that is a large and usually better category of prop. A frame, so whatever goes under it is composed rather than scattered. And eye-level placement, which is the only part of the display anybody sees from three feet instead of forty.
Which is why the commonest mistake on this shape is so costly: one big inflatable on the lawn, directly in the sightline, hiding the single feature that was doing the most work. It is an easy mistake because in the shop the inflatable is the exciting object and the porch is not for sale.
Keep the sightline from the sidewalk to the porch clear. Anything on the lawn goes to the sides of that line or stays low enough to look over.
Where the money goes on a narrow lot
| Spot | What belongs there | Height limit |
|---|---|---|
| Under the porch roof | The best-finished thing you own, and anything rated covered-only | About 8 ft, but measure your own soffit |
| Porch posts and rail | A continuous trim run | Linear, no height issue |
| The door | A wreath or equivalent, hung low | Under 6 ft 8 in. so it clears the swing |
| The lawn, either side of the walk | Two modest pieces, not four | About 6 ft 6 in. |
| The star, off the sightline | One piece with presence | About 9 ft absolute maximum, and 6 is usually better |
| The walk edge | Path lighting | Linear. Worth more here than anywhere, because people pass within arm’s reach |
Your neighbours are close enough to be part of the problem
On a forty foot lot the house next door is very near, and two things that are fine on an acre become antisocial here. Anything that flashes, chases or twinkles is now in somebody else’s bedroom window, and anything with a motion sensor and a sound chip triggers on their visitors as well as yours.
Set light runs to steady rather than any of the other modes, which looks better from the street anyway. If you have something that makes noise, turn the volume down further than feels right and put it on a timer that stops at a civilised hour.
This is not only courtesy. On a narrow street the neighbours are also the people walking past your display every day, and they are the ones who tell other people about it.
On older narrow lots the public right of way often runs several feet further into what looks like your lawn than anybody expects, and the strip between the sidewalk and the kerb is almost never yours. Staking into it can mean a utility line, a city ordinance, or a piece that legitimately gets removed. Worth five minutes with your plat map before you drive anything into that band.
Where this usually goes wrong
One giant inflatable that blocks the porch
The porch is the best feature this shape has: covered, framed, and at eye level. Parking the biggest thing you own directly in front of it trades the strongest part of the display for the largest one.
Buying for a yard three times the size
A piece that looks reasonable in a big-box aisle will swallow a fifteen foot setback whole. Measure sidewalk to front wall before you shop, and keep the tallest thing under about half of it.
Filling every square foot
A small lot with four pieces on it reads as cluttered and, oddly, smaller. Two or three with space between them reads as deliberate and makes the lot look bigger than it is.
The narrow shallow lot with a porch is one of the ten shapes on this site, with the porch sightline kept clear, the covered-only pieces routed under the roof and every spot capped to what fifteen feet of setback can carry.
Plans drawn for this shape
Every one of these is the same Narrow Shallow with Porch at 40′ by 15′, with 9 spots to fill. The map, the yard notes and the do-it-yourself version are free on all of them.
Halloween: Alien Invasion · Cryptid Crossing · The Old Cemetery · Spiders, Spiders, Spiders · Toxic Waste · Witch's Brew · Zombies
Christmas: Christmas Tree Forest · Classic White Christmas · The North Pole · Nutcrackers · Reindeer Pen · Santa's Workshop · Under The Tree · Vintage Christmas · Winter Wonderland
Valentine's Day: Cupid's Bow · Lace Valentine's Day · Sparkle Hearts
Easter and Spring: Easter Bunny Visit · Eggs, Eggs Everywhere · Spring Flowers
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