When I started building websites, I did what everyone said was the “smart” thing: I used WordPress themes like Astra and Blocksy. They promised a world of infinite possibilities with just a few clicks. But now, when I look back at projects like Cat Dad Diaries, I realise I wasn’t actually building; I was just trying to claw my way through someone else’s maze. I spent more time fighting theme builder toggles than I did writing code, eventually hitting a paywall every time I wanted to do something “too custom.” It took a defunct project and a lot of frustration to realise the “shortcuts” were actually holding me back.
The Cat Dad Diaries Saga
When my little furball “Jessie” arrived a few years ago, I had the idea to create an informative blog offering tips to other new cat owners, and this is when “Cat Dad Diaries” emerged. If I recall correctly, I managed to create around 20 blog posts and had a series planned for writing, and the site was slowly bringing in traffic. However, every time I logged in to make an “improvement”, my theme was there to prevent me doing what I actually wanted to do.
I remember trying to customise my archive grid, and realised I was stuck between two poor options: write ‘hacky’ CSS to override Astra’s core styles, or open my wallet for the “Pro” version just to unlock a single toggle. The site was growing, but my enthusiasm was dying under the weight of a theme that felt like a cage.
Why Premium Themes Became a Problem
Cat Dad Diaries wasn’t the only project where this happened, but it was the first one that made me realise something was off. Premium themes weren’t speeding me up, they were slowing me down. Every “feature” came bundled with three others I didn’t need. Every layout option felt like a compromise. Every update risked breaking something I’d spent hours trying to fix. And every time I wanted to push beyond the theme’s comfort zone, I hit another paywall or another wall of bloated code.
The more I worked with these themes, the more I realised I wasn’t actually in control. I was building on top of someone else’s decisions, someone else’s priorities, and someone else’s idea of what a website should be. The deeper I went, the more obvious it became that the theme wasn’t helping me build – it was actively getting in my way.
The Realisation I Can Just Build This Myself
I was already writing custom CSS to target classes and bend themes to my will, but this became such a chore. It wasn’t until I started doing The Odin Project, creating my first small project in VS Code, that it finally clicked. The roadblocks I kept running into weren’t limitations of WordPress or PHP, they were limitations of the theme sitting between me and the code.
So I stripped everything back and took a BlankSlate approach. No pre-built grids, no “Pro” toggles, and no hidden dependencies. Just clean PHP, a custom WordPress loop, and a simple CSS grid I already knew how to write. Suddenly, the “impossible” archive layout Astra wanted £50 for was just a few lines of code. The cage was unlocked, and I was the one holding the key this whole time.
If you want to learn more about the foundation I’m building on, check out the BlankSlate WP site and official WP documentation for child themes.
How This Changed my Approach
Sacking off premium themes wasn’t just about saving money; it was about reclaiming my craft. Now, my philosophy for JexiDev is built on these three non-negotiables:
- Performance First: If a line of code doesn’t serve the user, it doesn’t get loaded.
- Ownership: I build layouts I understand from the inside out, making them easier to maintain and impossible to “break” with a theme update.
- The “Developer-First” Stack: Using tools like GitHub for version control and custom PHP loops means I’m building professional-grade assets, not just “installing” a website.
Cat Dad Diaries might be defunct now, but the direction it pushed me in is the engine behind everything I build now. I don’t buy themes anymore, I build solutions.
It’s easy to talk about “stripping back bloat,” but it’s another thing to actually do it. In my next entry, I’m going to share the technical breakdown of how I replaced my entire blog layout with just 40 lines of PHP and a bit of CSS Grid.
Previously: Entry #02: From File Manager Goblin to GitHub Grown-Up
Coming Next: Entry #04: How I Rebuilt My Blog Layout in 40 Lines of PHP and CSS.