I just made the layout for
The End of Days right after I finished it. And it took
forever. I made two version of the banners. And I went through about five background pictures and just ended up making my own. Then I went through three pictures for the bottom of the page.
It took forever, but I like my layouts to be as close to perfect as I can get them.
Most of my older stories have generic layouts that I've made and I'll just choose them to fit the theme [because I have over 200 layouts, but only 170-something stories]. But almost all of my Panic-era stories have custom layouts.
And sometimes, I'll remake layouts for older stories. I just redid the layout and banner for
Room 242 and a few months ago I completely redid the layout and banner for
Billie Jo.
I don't agree with layouts never being able to fit a story, though. At least, in my case. I've never had difficulty with it. I have more difficulty with banners than layouts.