The Craftsman bungalow vignette came with a 7″ x 3″ x 3/4″ block of wood to use as the porch. It also came with precut railing pieces, which I lay between the posts to see how they’re supposed to be spaced. Centering the porch on the door would look like this.

This kit is a 1:24 version of a 1:48 kit, that was produced in a limited quantity. The picture on the box is of the 1:48 version. There, the porch is centered on the door and the porch posts land at the outer corners of the porch roof.

But on the 1:24 kit, centering the porch on the door results in the posts being significantly off-center at the top. That just looks weird.

I thought about making the porch bigger so the posts would line up with the corners, but the proportions are nice and I didn’t necessarily want a bigger porch. So I played around with configurations.

Here’s how it would look with the porch centered on the roof, and the posts and railing centered on the porch. This is a nonstarter for me. The door is off just enough to look like a mistake.

Here’s how it looks with the porch centered on the porch roof and the stairs lined up with the door. This is okay, but it leaves a very skinny railing area to the left of the stairs. The two thick post bases so close to each other are overwhelming.

I thought about moving the stairs to the side of the porch, but didn’t like the idea of the railing stretching all the way across the front and cutting off the view of the door. Seems less welcoming.

So I decided to go with this layout, which has wider steps to incorporate the door as well as the area to its left. This eliminates the skinny railing and its post that was too close to the corner post. The door isn’t centered on the stairs, but the wider staircase will make it look more balanced. I can put a plant or a bench next to the door to fill up that space.

I envisioned the porch pillars having stone bases, but that seemed like it would be very heavy on top of a wooden porch floor. (If they were real pillars with real stone, I mean.)

While googling, I discovered that real-life Craftsman bungalows that have wooden posts sitting on stone or brick bases, those bases go all the way down to the ground and tie in to the foundation.

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