I've put together a straight plan as per @Flying Pig's advice, and it certainly looks neater than with the curved fiddle yard approach. I'm still unsure on the station location though, since my original plan had it in the middle of the board to make space for some scenery at the street-level entrance (although that means the yard is also in the middle, obviously wasting the limited space). At the moment, I intend to operate the layout facing the fiddle yard, but that's not set in stone. I considered adding a fourth fiddle yard road too, although I feel it would've been slightly too short.
This one is even closet to their plan, and includes my attempt at filling in the space behind the station. While there's no space in front of the layout for scenery, I could squeeze in a couple of workers' cottages to fill the empty space between the two goods yards. There's less space for industry however, though I could probably change the siding arrangement on the right.
As always, thanks for the help!