Actually, it’s more like overhauling the blog. I wish I had a picture snapshot of what the blog looked like before changing the theme. For the last 10 months or so since starting the blog, have been using Foodie Pro theme. Recently I have changed and upgraded the blog theme here to one of Restored 316 newest elegant themes the Refined Theme which is an Amazing looking Beautiful theme.
Restored 316
Restored 316 has about 17 very beautiful and glamorous themes that can make your website look really amazing! I had never heard of Restored 316 and their really awesome premium looking themes. They have very classy, elegant and very beautiful themes for the female clientele and entrepreneurs. But their themes appeal to men too! The driving force behind Restored 316 is Lauren Gaige the graphic designer/owner and the rest of her team. I’ve found Lauren and her team quite responsive, supportive and at best quite personable in answering questions during my installation of the new theme and in helping to resolve issues that I may have had in the theme installation. As well, Lauren and her team were quite helpful and informative during the Refined Theme online workshop via Crowdcast back in late April 2017 which I also attended and was great. I attended and participated in that workshop during my lunch-break at work and finished watching the rest of it later that evening. I enjoyed the theme demo during the workshop and all the feedback from all the questions.
All the Restored 316 premium themes work with WordPress and the Genesis Framework from StudioPress for your website if using on a hosted server. I like elegance and beauty and Restored 316 themes appealed to me as well and not just for females. Do like and appreciate beautiful looking websites. As such after really checking out the theme I purchased their newest theme the Refined Theme which has a clean refined look, very elegant, classy and it appealed to what I was looking for.
Restored 316 does offer an assessment quiz on their website to help you best decide which of their other themes may be best suited to your website needs.
Refined Theme
The new theme offers quite a bit of option in how the theme looks, front page layout, overall look, and header customization to the user.
The theme is a very versatile, sleek, elegant in look and refined with quite a bit of option. And all I can say is I absolutely love the look of the “Refined” theme from Restored 316 here on the blog. The new theme is just what I was looking for, but didn’t quite know it until I stumbled on the theme roaming around the internet.
I was looking for a really elegant theme to go along with the Blog Logo Design that was also in the works but hadn’t quite found something really appealing as yet. Visiting and reading various other blogs like I often do, I stumbled on a blog that had a really catchy theme that struck me on visiting and I couldn’t help but wonder what theme were they using. Via a Google search and using WordPress Theme Detector I decided to check just what theme the blog was using and it was a Restored 316 theme.
After purchasing the new theme I slowly started to switch the site over from the Foodie Pro to the Refined theme. It wasn’t difficult, rather easy as the Refined theme came with all the added plugins. If you’re installing any of these themes you may want to try and disable all the other unnecessary themes running on your blog site before installation. I did have one plug that was causing me some issue with a Genesis plugin that was installed on the blog apart from the previous theme and it took seemingly forever to figure out that was the issue in configuring the theme setup here on the blog. With great help from Lauren at Restored 316 was able to resolve the issue.
Features
With the Refined theme, you have quite a few options in how you can configure the navigation bars at the top of the page and have three options including Secondary and Footer Header at bottom of page. You can set announcement if you like site-wide at the very top page.
The theme offers lots of options for Social Media configuration with Social Media icons at top of page and can be placed elsewhere on the site. I was able to place them also on the sidebar and at bottom of page below in the Footer. You also have the options for Social Media on posts and pages before and after the posts and pages as part of the theme.
Instagram intigration onto the site is made much easier as the theme offers the option to easily install it. You can add it on the sidebar and in the Footer so you can display your awesome images from Instagram if that’s something you like. Its awesome!
There is a very nice Slider widget that’s currently set with a static picture at top of page with a welcome message that can be edited to give an inviting message feel to your blog. The Slider can also be made responsive by adding up to 5 feature photo’s which can rotate on an ongoing timer. The photo does give a nice customization look to your site depending on what your website is about.
Based on configuring the widgets you can give your blog front page a very picture friendly navigation and featured page/post look below the slider at top of page. You have several options in how you can utilize this layout and style on your blog. Which offers allot of options. There’s plenty of options for adding subscriber signups and building it into the layout of the blog itself and posts as well being able to make it quite pronounced on the site.
There are options for adding custom text and links that add to the style look of the theme as well a widget with a rotating testimonial that can be used in interesting ways to add a more personal look and feel to your site.
Within the theme are quite a bit of options for laying out Featured Posts, Pages layout based on image size. This all set up to give a variety of different look to the Blog and other sections of the site. I really like that option.
Aside from the front page configuration of the theme, there is the custom layout for the actual Blog page which can be made separate from the themes front page configuration. Just the Blog page alone is awesome in its look and configuration option with featured image post. That alone really gives a unique look to the Blog page. Yet you can also find what’s on the Blog page by just scrolling downwards on the theme front page of the blog.
If you have an index page it’s really easy to configure with the blog widgets. It adds a really nice optional layout to any index page you may have on your site.
Quite a bit of option for changing up a variable amount of colors of the site as a whole and colors on links to various things in the theme. I really didn’t mess with those too much just wanting to get the layout right.
On Restored 316 website there are many awesome and quite extensive tutorial list for configuring any of the themes. If you’re interested in purchasing any of the themes they all have their own very nicely done extensive set of tutorials.
There are some other features but they are all integrated into the customization options the themes offers which is plenty, that allows you to build a beautiful looking website. It took some time, but I was able to configure my site the way I wanted it.
As part of installing the theme, I did have to go back and fix some picture image issues I had that needed to get fixed. Fixing Images were a pain in the ass, but I’m glad that’s all done. Overall I’m super happy with the look and feel of the site. If you’re interested in the Refined Theme or any of the other Premium Themes by Restored 316, be sure to click on any the image links and visit Restored316 site for more information about all the other awesome, elegant and beautiful looking themes.
What elegant theme are you using on your website or blog? Have you ever used any of Restored 316 themes?
Disclosure: As an Affiliate for Restored316 this post does contain affiliate links. I may earn a commission on your purchase of any of their premium themes using links in this post.
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