Boulder County

Old Town Louisville puts your porch three steps from the sidewalk

Louisville front yards are short and the sidewalk is close, so the display is seen from arm's length rather than across a lawn. The pumpkins come whole and uncarved, and we build in place, sized to your frontage.

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A Colorado porch pumpkin display running the length of a front walk near Louisville.

A miners' cottage frontage is seen from arm's length

Old Town Louisville was laid out for coal miners, and most of the original cottages and the later bungalows still sit close to the street with a short path, a few steps and a porch that is more platform than room. That proximity is an advantage. Nobody is squinting at your display from sixty feet away, so detail counts and the group has to look right from the side as well as the front. We keep it off the walking line, build up the step edges rather than across them, and use the porch posts as the back of the arrangement. On the smaller cottages a Little build reads properly. Go bigger on a frontage that narrow and it stops looking like an arrangement and starts looking like storage.

The newer subdivisions need more mass to read

North and west of the old grid the pattern flips. Houses sit back behind a driveway, the garage door is the widest thing on the elevation, and the planting is young enough that there is nothing to frame against. A display that would fill an Old Town porch disappears out there. So we build wider, split the group between the front door and the driveway edge so it reads from a moving car, and use hay bales to hold a base line at a height you can actually see from the street. Full is the usual pick on those lots, and Fairy Tale is not excessive on the wider ones. We also keep the whole thing clear of the mailbox and the hose bib, which sounds obvious and is the thing people forget until the display is finished.

Short blocks mean everybody sees it at walking pace

Old Town blocks are short and the houses sit close together, so people walk here in a way they do not in most of the county, and late October evenings on the grid get genuinely busy with families out on foot. Worth being clear about what we build for that. The pumpkins are whole and uncarved, and the arrangement is a harvest display, built to look composed from mid August through the end of the season rather than for one evening. That is deliberate. A display that holds for ten weeks earns its place on a small frontage far better than one that peaks for a night. If you want it to come through a busy evening of foot traffic intact, tell us and we will keep the base tight to the house and well off the path.

Alleys, narrow streets and how we get in

Access in Old Town is the fiddly part. The streets are narrow, some blocks are one side parking, and a fair number of houses are served by a rear alley rather than the frontage. None of that is a problem, it just changes where we set up. We carry in from wherever is legal and closest, and we work off the sidewalk rather than blocking it. In the newer neighborhoods there is usually driveway room, which makes the build quicker and lets us lay the whole group out before placing anything. Either way you do not need to move a car or be home. Tell us if there is a gate code, a dog loose in the yard, or a side of the house you would rather we did not walk across.

Questions from Louisville

Our Old Town front yard is only a few feet deep. Is that enough space?

Yes. Most of the original cottage lots are like that, and the porch and steps do the work. We build vertically against the posts and railing instead of spreading sideways, and we keep the path clear so the mail carrier and your neighbors can still get to the door.

We have new porch boards. Will hay bales or pumpkins mark them?

Straw sheds constantly and a damp pumpkin base can leave a ring on fresh paint or new composite decking. Tell us before the build and we will set the group on the step and path instead of the deck, or keep a barrier under anything that sits directly on boards.

Can you do a Louisville build with no orange in it at all?

Yes. The neutral palette is $75 on top of any package and uses white, pale green, gray and buff varieties instead. It suits the newer gray and white elevations on the north side, and it reads as deliberate rather than seasonal, which some people prefer.