After years of running my personal site on a premium WordPress theme, I decided to start from scratch. Not because the old theme was broken — it worked fine. But “fine” is the enemy of great, and I wanted a site that truly represented what I do: build fast, modern, accessible websites.
The Problem with Premium Themes
Most premium WordPress themes try to be everything for everyone. They ship with dozens of page templates, bundled plugins, and enough options to fill a small book. The result? A 3MB homepage that scores 40 on PageSpeed Insights and takes four seconds to load on mobile.
For someone who builds websites professionally, that is not a great look.
Why a Block Theme?
WordPress Full Site Editing (FSE) has matured significantly. Block themes let you control every aspect of your site — header, footer, templates, patterns — using the block editor and a single theme.json configuration file. No more hunting through theme options panels or overriding CSS from three different stylesheets.
The architecture is clean: theme.json handles your design tokens (colors, typography, spacing), block patterns handle your page layouts, and template parts handle your reusable components. Everything lives in version control, deploys via GitHub Actions, and is easy to maintain.
The Build Process
Here is what the stack looks like:
- theme.json — Design tokens, color palette, typography scale, spacing system
- Block patterns — Hero sections, service grids, contact forms, stats rows
- Vanilla CSS — No build tools, no Sass, no PostCSS. Just clean custom properties and modern CSS
- Vanilla JS — Scroll-reveal animations, dark mode toggle, IntersectionObserver for performance
- GitHub Actions — Automatic SFTP deployment to DreamHost on every push to main
Total custom CSS: under 600 lines. Total JavaScript: under 100 lines. The entire theme weighs less than most hero images on a typical premium theme.
Performance Results
The numbers speak for themselves. The new site loads in under one second, scores above 95 on all Lighthouse categories, and passes WCAG 2.1 AA contrast requirements. Dark mode is built in, animations respect prefers-reduced-motion, and the entire experience works without JavaScript enabled.
More importantly, it looks and feels exactly like my brand — warm, personal, and premium. No compromises.
Should You Build a Custom Block Theme?
If you are a developer or agency building client sites, absolutely. The control and performance gains are significant. If you are a business owner, it depends on your needs — but working with a developer who understands block themes means you get a faster, more maintainable site that does not lock you into a specific theme vendor.
Either way, the days of needing a bloated multipurpose theme are behind us. WordPress has caught up to the modern web, and it is worth taking advantage of it.