Disclaimer: This post is out of date, and refers to a much older design refresh than the current one! If you want to know what I’m currently using, right this way.
Guys I redid Half Banked’s design!
Finally.
I made myself a promise when I started Half Banked that I had to wait to switch to a self-hosted WordPress blog until I had at least two months of consistent blogging under my belt. See, I have a bit of a starting-projects problem, in that I’m all in for the first few months… and then nothing.
One time, I started a “lifestyle” blog that quickly devolved into me making fun of how un-Martha-Stewart I actually am. There was a pretty hilarious post about the one time I thought I was a person who could pull off a flower crown.
I am not a person who should ever wear a flower crown.
That blog lasted all of a few weeks, so I was really glad I took the wait-and-see approach, and didn’t invest any money into it. That’s why – with a gentle reminder from The Boyfriend – I took the same approach with Half Banked. I could start a blog, sure, but until I had a few months behind me, a few things were off limits.
- No moving it to my Bluehost account (which I have for other projects, including my personal site that I’ve had for years.)
- No buying themes.
- No buying images.
- No paying for the WordPress.com upgrades, like custom colours.
I gave myself a pass on buying a domain, especially since my domain purchase came with an added bonus. When you buy a domain, you can’t move it from the place you bought it for 60 days. This might vary between registrars, but that was the stipulation from my registrar. So for the first 60 days, I had to make do with a somewhat-hacked-together WordPress.com blog.
I have been counting the days since early September, and this week I finally, finally hit Domain Transfer Day. I had it in my calendar and everything.
This Thanksgiving, I was thankful to have the day off to spend working on this – among other things, obviously.
After only a few minor moments thinking “Holy crap I’m so out of my technical depth here,” mostly due to the face that I have multiple domains on my one hosting account and had to learn some new terminology, Half Banked was officially nowhere.
What?
For a solid few hours, as I waded through those technical challenges, the site was just down. Nothing to see here, folks. Luckily, I was able to get WordPress up and running again on my hosted website, and from there it was somewhat smooth sailing.
I put up a quick landing page letting people know the site was undergoing a minor facelift using WP Maintenance Mode, which I’d recommend to anyone. It is stupid easy to use. After literally five minutes, this is what Half Banked looked like to the world.
So much easier to set up than I possibly could have hoped for. Seriously.
In the background, I got to work.
Choosing a Theme
Even though I wasn’t allowed to buy a theme or anything for Half Banked, trust me when I say that doesn’t mean I didn’t look. I am a notorious window shopper, and I have a thing for WordPress themes.
It’s more of a problem, really.
Anyways, I browsed, and I browsed hard. My two favourite places to look for themes are Themeforest and Creative Market, and there were three standouts that I considered for the site. Jacqueline, a Bluchic theme available on Creative Market. Boss Lady, also available on Creative Market. And Seashell, a theme from Themeforest.
As I poured over them again and again (and again) I realized I had to be somewhat realistic. Both of the Creative Market themes were best suited to actual businesses, which I’m not ruling out for Half Banked – but I’m also so not there. So Seashell it was, with the big perk that it was also the cheapest of my preferred options at $39.00.
Creating Images
To take care of the images and the “creative stuff” for the site, I splurged on a very well timed Creative Market Big Bundle. They do these monthly, and while one isn’t up now – they’re limited-time-only kind of things – they are definitely worth watching out for. Basically, they gather up a huge number of different creative assets – think pictures, fonts, themes, scene creators, etc. – and offer them for a stunning discount. Seriously, stunning.
I did the math, and as long as I used more than three of the assets, I was coming out ahead in terms of savings. If I used every single asset, I was looking at a 97% savings – although using every single one sounds a bit daunting. A few was more than enough. With this project in mind, and some serendipitously included assets I wanted to buy anyways, I figured it was a steal.
By far the best part of the bundle was the Solid Gold Scene Creator. It’s a Photoshop file that lets you move a bunch of images around, switch between different backgrounds, and create a whole variety of different images. It’s the base for my landing page image, and all of the page headers that are currently up on Half Banked.
Just in case you thought I was fancy and owned gold scissors, now you know. I am not, and I don’t.
This seems pretty self-explanatory.
All together, these two purchases – the theme and the Creative Market Big Bundle – cost me $78. For the amount of fun I’ve had redoing the site, and the amount of excitement I currently feel about continuing this project, I’d say it’s money well spent!
And yes, I’m not including my hosting costs in there, for a simple reason. I’ve had a hosting account with Bluehost for years now, to keep my personal site online – and feed my WordPress theme addiction, of course. (Seriously, I’m not even ready to look at how many of them I’ve bought over the years. So not ready.) So for this project, I didn’t have to add any monthly costs – my hosting account was paid for yearly over the summer, and allowed me to have more than one site associated with it.
If you do want to host your own site, you can start with a Bluehost plan for $3.95 a month – which honestly, I recommend if only for the fun and flexibility of choosing from the wide world of themes out there.
I know, I know. I have a problem.
So there you have it – my under-$100 site redesign. It might not seem like the most frugal of things to spend as much as I did when there are perfectly good free options out there, but with the amount of fun I had, I wouldn’t change it for the world.
Do you self-host your site? If yes, are you like me with the theme shopping? (It’s so bad, you guys.) I’d love to hear your experiences – especially if you went from WordPress.com to a self-hosted site!
Congrats! I love the redesign. I don’t know if I’ll ever take She Picks Up Pennies to this level, but it’s so great to see how you did it. Love the insight and the inside look.
Thank you so much! Honestly the longest part was my stubborn insistence on making a new image for every single post. If I wrote as frequently as you do – seriously, I am so blown away at how often you post awesome quality stuff – there’s no way it ever would have gotten done, haha.
Ngl, I really liked your old theme already, but this one is very fun.
Inspiring me to revamp my blog…but I think I’ll take a page out of your book and make myself commit for a solid 3 months before I do anything, although there are a loooot of really great options to be found for free if you look around enough.
Love the change though, good luck 🙂
Thanks Rue! And oh my gosh, I couldn’t agree more on the free themes thing – *especially* if you have even basic coding chops, because I’ve heard rumours it isn’t that hard to customize them pretty extensively! I’m just not there yet, haha.
Clearly I’m a fan of the time-frame-before-drastic-moves thing, and it’s served me well! If you do decide to do a revamp let me know – even if it’s sooner rather than later! I’m on my phone right now and WordPress is being a butt and not linking your avatar to your blog, but if it’s live send me a link, I’d love to check it out!
I’ve been very sporadic about actually posting anything since ages lol, and its not a finance blog (I recently started a job in finance hence the difference) but it’s http://www.laruehina.com
i do want to redo the site and start posting regularly…
I actually do know basic html, but when you go in to edit a wordpress theme it’s so daunting since I’ve never done it. But thats what youtube and blogs are for!
I’ll let you know when I start posting again, I’ve loved following along since you started your blog 🙂
Oh my gosh I am obsessed with your chalkboard wall! It’s so awesome – I wanted to do that in my dining room but had to accept that a mostly-black wall wasn’t the best choice for a windowless room, haha. Definitely keep me posted if you get going with posts again! Thanks for sending the link along 🙂
I love the new look! I hope you love it, too. It was definitely a little nerve-wracking launching our new site, though I think part of that was that it was a total overhaul including a really different logo. Yours feels like a great evolution, not a down-to-the-studs change (I mean that in the best way).
We’re still rocking a free theme, though do have the business package on WordPress for whatever that’s worth. Will look into some of the self-hosted stuff, which will allow us to use more widgets, in the next few months.
Off to go rock some flower crowns…
I hear they’re all the rage at Glastonbury 😉 or at least they were a few years ago? Again, style is just not my forte, haha, so don’t take my word for it!
Honestly your site revamp was a big inspiration! I loved watching you talk about it on Twitter, and with the amount of gorgeous photos you have it’s the perfect fit for you (I think, anyways!) I had to be pretty honest with myself that photos on my blog are more the camera phone variety, not the “aspire to have gorgeous photos like mine” variety. Which is ok! I’m totally happy with how it turned out, and thank you for the kind words – I get what you mean and the encouragement is super-appreciated!
I like the new look! I’ll be trying to do something similar in the near future and I too am obsessed with WordPress themes. I completely hear you about committing to a blog for a few months and then disappearing. It has happened all too often and I’ve vowed not to let it happen again!
Thanks Pira! And YES I am so thrilled not to be alone on the WordPress theme thing! It’s like browsing through ideal future versions of your site. So dreamy and SO enticing. My goal is to be happy with this one for at least a year, haha – no changes are on their way that would necessitate a big redesign, and I’m in the same place you are. No abandoning another blog!
Helpfully, money will always be around, and I don’t see myself not caring about it anytime soon! Unlike the flower crowns. My god. It was such a disaster. A style blogger, I am not.
Looks great – just started myself using Bluehost but instead of WordPress I’m using concrete5 with a purchased design template 😀 Your design looks unique from a bunch of the other WordPress blogs out there so kudos! (One of the reasons I didn’t go the WordPress route)
Thanks Tim! I definitely know what you mean about the lookalike WordPress blogs, haha. Some of the templates I looked at were all but identical to one another! Your website looks awesome too, the template you chose is great – I’ve never heard of concrete5 before to be honest, but it’s clearly working for you!
Also, um, on another note: a 2:38 marathon time?! That is CHEETAH fast, kudos to you! Like seriously. My first half-marathon was uh… minutes faster than that. Really, really well done!
Thanks 🙂 still trying to get the whole blogging thing down pat – really like the features you have on the sidebar! Kudos on the half-marathon, I’ve been running for 15+ years so I have an unfair advantage in that regard 😀
Sometimes I feel the urge for a site redesign. Then I tell myself firmly that for any site with decent content, NO-ONE LOOKS AT YOUR HOME PAGE.
Seriously, google is almost everyone’s way into your content. So no point in yearning after a modern parallax home page or something. Spend your time on improving your content.
I so so so agree – that’s what really swayed me to choose this theme, because the focus is on the blog posts. Plus, actually sitting down to write a home page stresses me out, haha. I’d much rather focus on the writing at this point!
I love the new design! Congrats on making the switch. Bluehost has been a great company to work with–their customer service is excellent.
Thanks Claudia! And oh my I couldn’t agree more – they were so phenomenal to me during my (several) freak outs as I switched the site over – including one that was actually an issue with my internet, not their hosting, haha. Whoops?
Nice redesign. I’m a blogging newbie, so I’m still on WordPress with a free theme. I would like to make sure that my blogging habit sticks before getting considering self-hosting.
That is so, so, so wise! I definitely recommend it – there’s nothing worse than signing up for a year of anything and then two months in, realizing it’s not for you.
*mumble mumble stupid gym memberships mumble mumble*
Really like the new layout! It looks great.
Having this said, the circle buttons on the right of the post is huge and quite distracting.
I think it would be a lot easier on the eyes if they were a tad bit smaller!
Thanks for the feedback Ritika! Honestly I kind of agree – I’m going to learn what I can about HTML and CSS and see what I can manage on my own in terms of adjusting them! Worst case, they stay the same, but maybe this is the push I need to actually get into code, haha.
Congratulations in the redesign, and I’m glad the changeover experience wasn’t too nerve-wracking for you! The site looks great by the way.
I made the switch to self-hosted fairly recently as well and it was a relatively stressful time as there was so much stuff that I hadn’t thought of before I made the switch. I am still running with my original free theme but probably need to look into a new theme and a logo to take things to the next level!
Thank you! And I might be downplaying how nerve-wracking it was, haha. I mean, in the end it worked out, but The Boyfriend gave me a VERY wide berth as I sat there swearing under my breath about DNS and web hosting.
And it’s so true – I’m sure someone out there has a very comprehensive list of what to think about before making the switch, but I’m glad I gave myself a few days to find all the missing pieces. Or at least… all of the missing pieces I’m *currently* aware of! Keep me posted if/when you switch up your design – I’m sure it’ll be awesome!
Look great Des!
I’m currently on the free WordPress but like you I didn’t want to splurge on the self hosted solution. What would you say are the main reasons why you wanted to switch? I know the free WordPress site is pretty limited in what you can do. I have a bit of time on my hands (which you can read on my blog later this week 🙂 ) so this is definitely a good time to switch!
A lot of people have written about it a LOT more eloquently than I will, so bear with me on this! But off the cuff, I’d say my favourite part of self-hosting is the flexibility and control. I can choose any theme from the millions out there, since the vast majority of them are made for self-hosted sites, and then I have total control to tweak them as I see fit (which sometimes relies on having more technical people than me around… but still, haha.) For that same amount of flexibility in WordPress – plus the guarantee that if I’m displaying ads, it’s only ads that I’ve chosen, not ones that WordPress decided to put up – it costs over $100 to buy it in WordPress.com.
Basically, I’m a control freak and was going to pay to get that control back one way or the other, haha. That’s just my biggest reasoning, with a big side dose of the design / aesthetic benefits of having that kind of control. I’ll send any other “why self-host” blog posts I come across your way!
This is awesome! I jumped in to a self-hosted WP site from the beginning and the learning curve was STEEP! I’m also on my 3rd version of M$M this year (had to move pretty fast). I think you did a good job and your site looks great!
If you do another change down the road – Thesis and Genesis are killer but cost a bit more.
Oh my gosh, I remember my first foray into self-hosted sites – you’re *very* brave to have jumped in with both feet! I luckily had a much, much smaller audience for my very first one, so I got to mostly figure it out behind the scenes.
I’ve heard really, really excellent things about Thesis and Genesis, and I know so many great sites (yours included!) that run on them. Honestly, my biggest fear is that if I had that much control I’d end up with a site straight out of the 90s and be like “No it looks great, what do you mean bright neon Comic Sans is passé?” I’ll work on my self-control before the next major update I do, haha.
Thanks for the comment and taking the time to stop by, Bobby!
HAHAHAHA I also have a theme browsing addiction!
I need a bit of a makeover, maybe over the summer holidays. I get so sick of the same old look – maybe I need to actually get a professional to help with the design stuff.
You just made me realise I’ve been self hosted for like three years now. WOW. (Blogged about that experience here: http://nzmuse.com/2012/12/now-coming-to-you-from-a-self-hosted-platform/)
I’m so so glad I’m not alone on that! Hahaha the theme browsing problem is so real.
Also, I love that you shared the link to that post because OH THANK GOD it’s not just me with the tears and the terminology involved! My butt was also saved by the one-click install, but man was it a stressful morning of acronyms. You captured it brilliantly, and congrats on the three years of self-hosting! Have you found it’s been worth it over time? (I feel like the answer is almost always yes, but I’m so into hearing other people’s experiences with it!)
I so love this blog! You’re really inspiring me to start up a new one. I had one in Uni / like a year after but I’m embarrassed of half the stuff on there now lol. Also maajorly inspired to save right now. Thaaank yooou!
Awww Lana thank YOU! I really respect your opinion about stuff so I’m especially flattered you like it – I’ll keep an eye out for your new one! (And “being embarrassed by old blog posts” is like, my default setting in life. It’s part of creating things in public I guess, haha. Speaking of I REALLY need to update my old personal website.)