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2 days later and a few broken themes and installs later finally figured it out..

To make this easier I suggest having one install with sample data and a separate one without, so it will be easier to copy things from sample data install to your current site

1. Install a custom theme with luma being the parent, which means in your theme.xml you should have:

<parent>Magento/luma</parent>

Details: https://devdocs.magento.com/guides/v2.3/frontend-dev-guide/themes/theme-create.html

2. From sample data install copy the content of

vendor/magento/module-cms-sample-data/fixtures/styles.css

Which contains the CSS that makes the homepage look like in the sample data, then paste it into your custom theme's folder and register it inside the .xml file. See Ben Cook's reply here: https://magento.stackexchange.com/a/237680/83449

The custom .css file should end up in a folder like

app/design/frontend/[THEME VENDOR]/[THEME]/web/css/[CSS FILE].css

3. Copy the images from sample data site and put them in **pub/media/wysiwyg/home/**and /pub/media/ folders (when you're downloading the images you'll see where they should go). Example you should end up with /pub/media/wysiwyg/home/home-erin.jpg and other files from sample data

4. From sample data magento install copy the markup from content > blocks > homepage, now go to your fresh install and paste it into content > pages > homepage

Sample markup snippet:

<div class="blocks-promo"><a class="block-promo home-main" href="

You're done

2 days and few broken themes later finally figured it out..

To make this easier I suggest having one install with sample data and a separate one without, so it will be easier to copy things from sample data install to your current site

1. Install a custom theme with luma being the parent, which means in your theme.xml you should have:

<parent>Magento/luma</parent>

Details: https://devdocs.magento.com/guides/v2.3/frontend-dev-guide/themes/theme-create.html

2. From sample data install copy the content of

vendor/magento/module-cms-sample-data/fixtures/styles.css

Which contains the CSS that makes the homepage look like in the sample data, then paste it into your custom theme's folder and register it inside the .xml file. See Ben Cook's reply here: https://magento.stackexchange.com/a/237680/83449

The custom .css file should end up in a folder like

app/design/frontend/[THEME VENDOR]/[THEME]/web/css/[CSS FILE].css

3. Copy the images from sample data site and put them in **pub/media/wysiwyg/home/**and /pub/media/ folders (when you're downloading the images you'll see where they should go). Example you should end up with /pub/media/wysiwyg/home/home-erin.jpg and other files from sample data

4. From sample data magento install copy the markup from content > blocks > homepage, now go to your fresh install and paste it into content > pages > homepage

Sample markup snippet:

<div class="blocks-promo"><a class="block-promo home-main" href="

You're done

The following worked.

This is a high-level overview. To make this easier I suggest having one install with sample data and a separate one without, so it will be easier to copy things from sample data install to your virgin data site

1. Install a custom theme with luma being the parent (which means in your theme.xml you should have Magento/luma) https://devdocs.magento.com/guides/v2.3/frontend-dev-guide/themes/theme-create.html

2. Copy the content of vendor/magento/module-cms-sample-data/fixtures/styles.css (which contains the CSS that makes the homepage look like in the sample data) paste it into your custom theme's folder and register it inside the .xml file. See Ben Cook's reply here: https://magento.stackexchange.com/a/237680/83449

So the custom .css file will end up in a folder like app/design/frontend/[THEME VENDOR NAME]/[THEME NAME]/web/css/[CUSTOM CSS FILE NAME].css

3. Copy the images from sample data site and put them in **pub/media/wysiwyg/home/**and /pub/media/ folders (when you're downloading the images you'll see where they should go). Example you should end up with /pub/media/wysiwyg/home/home-erin.jpg and other files from sample data

4. From sample data magento install copy the markup from content > blocks > homepage, now go to your fresh install and paste it into content > pages > homepage

Sample markup snippet:

You're done

2 days later and a few broken themes and installs later finally figured it out..

To make this easier I suggest having one install with sample data and a separate one without, so it will be easier to copy things from sample data install to your current site

1. Install a custom theme with luma being the parent, which means in your theme.xml you should have:

<parent>Magento/luma</parent>

Details: https://devdocs.magento.com/guides/v2.3/frontend-dev-guide/themes/theme-create.html

2. From sample data install copy the content of

vendor/magento/module-cms-sample-data/fixtures/styles.css

Which contains the CSS that makes the homepage look like in the sample data, then paste it into your custom theme's folder and register it inside the .xml file. See Ben Cook's reply here: https://magento.stackexchange.com/a/237680/83449

The custom .css file should end up in a folder like

app/design/frontend/[THEME VENDOR]/[THEME]/web/css/[CSS FILE].css

3. Copy the images from sample data site and put them in **pub/media/wysiwyg/home/**and /pub/media/ folders (when you're downloading the images you'll see where they should go). Example you should end up with /pub/media/wysiwyg/home/home-erin.jpg and other files from sample data

4. From sample data magento install copy the markup from content > blocks > homepage, now go to your fresh install and paste it into content > pages > homepage

Sample markup snippet:

<div class="blocks-promo"><a class="block-promo home-main" href="

You're done

The following worked, this is a high-level overview, to make this easier I suggest having one install with sample data and one without so it will be easier to copy things from sample data install to your virgin data site

1. Install a custom theme with luma being the parent https://devdocs.magento.com/guides/v2.3/frontend-dev-guide/themes/theme-create.html

2. Copy the content of vendor/magento/module-cms-sample-data/fixtures/styles.css (which contains the CSS that makes the homepage look like in the sample data) paste it into your custom theme's folder and register it inside the .xml file. See Ben Cook's reply here: https://magento.stackexchange.com/a/237680/83449

3. Copy the images from sample data site and put them in pub/media/wysiwyg/home/and /pub/media/ folders (when you're downloading the images you'll see where they should go)

4. Go to sample data theme and copy the markup from content > blocks > homepage, now go to your fresh install and paste it into content > pages > homepage

You're done

The following worked.

This is a high-level overview. To make this easier I suggest having one install with sample data and a separate one without, so it will be easier to copy things from sample data install to your virgin data site

1. Install a custom theme with luma being the parent (which means in your theme.xml you should have Magento/luma) https://devdocs.magento.com/guides/v2.3/frontend-dev-guide/themes/theme-create.html

2. Copy the content of vendor/magento/module-cms-sample-data/fixtures/styles.css (which contains the CSS that makes the homepage look like in the sample data) paste it into your custom theme's folder and register it inside the .xml file. See Ben Cook's reply here: https://magento.stackexchange.com/a/237680/83449

So the custom .css file will end up in a folder like app/design/frontend/[THEME VENDOR NAME]/[THEME NAME]/web/css/[CUSTOM CSS FILE NAME].css

3. Copy the images from sample data site and put them in **pub/media/wysiwyg/home/**and /pub/media/ folders (when you're downloading the images you'll see where they should go). Example you should end up with /pub/media/wysiwyg/home/home-erin.jpg and other files from sample data

4. From sample data magento install copy the markup from content > blocks > homepage, now go to your fresh install and paste it into content > pages > homepage

Sample markup snippet:

You're done