So turns out, there are a LOT of great sources of inspiration on how to go about setting up some cornerstone pages out there.

I’ve spent most of the day happily falling down the IndieWeb rabbit hole once again. There were points where I completely forgot what I was even supposed to be doing, instead just enjoying all the awesome websites people have set up and call home. It’s honestly reassuring to see this much excellent effort being put into something as simple as a homepage.

And all the different colors! And fonts! And just unique approaches to how a website can look and be built. Some are simple templates, and still beautiful. Others are complex hand-rolled elaborate displays of CSS mastery, and just as equally awesome.

Clearly, I have my work cut out for me.

I know that I won’t get there overnight. I’m only trying to start right now. But man, there is some great stuff out there that I’d love to be able to do myself.

By far, the best starting point I found was via (of course) another personal website, ken.fyi. Specifically, this piece about building cornerstones, and the various options that are most commonly found across the web.

I mean, just go read that page. It’s so inspiring! So many great links to follow and examples to see and ways to make an afternoon completely disappear before your very eyes.

Reading the list of popular cornerstone pages out there, and following the links to all the great examples, I kept in the back of my head the constant question: which ones should I use? What should I build? And the voice that resides in the back of my head kept shouting back, “all of them, obviously! And stop storing your questions in my living room!”

And while all of them are great ideas (a Quotes page?!? Are you kidding me with how awesome that sounds and how much fun that would be to put together???), I think I’ve limited my starting options down to three.

I’m thinking I’ll start with an About page, because that seems to be a thing worth having. And it’s the page I find myself visiting most frequently on other people’s homepages.

Next I’ll put together a Contact page. I hesitate here, because I generally cringe at the idea of other people contacting me out of the blue. But that’s partially the whole point of this, isn’t it? Putting oneself out there and engaging with the world. So yeah, there’ll be a Contact page.

Lastly, I really like the Now pages I’ve been seeing. So I think I’ll try and throw one of those together as well. Seems like a great way of sharing things that are worth your time. Or a good way to explain why you have no free time. Or just to mark the passage of time. Whatever it does, I like the ones I’ve seen so I’m going to try it out.

And that is the goal for the next couple of days! Once I get the hang of it and have worked out how I want things to look, I’m sure there will be further expansion. But this is where I’ll start. Tomorrow.

I used to watch a lot of Three Stooges with my dad when I was a kid. Personally, I preferred the Marx Brothers, but I didn’t control the television remote. There was this one Three Stooges skit (I don’t remember which) that had a line where one of the stooges (again, don’t remember which) says “Niagara Falls! Slowly I turned…step by step…inch by inch…” My dad would quote it without fail anytime he heard someone say the phrase “step by step”. Which I always thought was funny, because the skit was all about getting triggered by the phrase “Niagara Falls”. But he’d crack himself up with it. Now it’s the only line I remember, and it still makes me chuckle every time I hear or think “step by step”. And funnily enough, I never think of it when I hear the phrase “Niagara Falls”. Oh, how our parents form us.

Anyways, that’s how the progress on this homepage is going. Step by step. Inch by inch. And the step I’ve been taking today has been to look at some other homepages out there for examples of how these cornerstones are being used.

Do you have any idea how many awesome personal websites there are out there? Because I gave up on counting. My browser is filled to the limits of my CPU with open tabs of excellent sites that people put together.

In my search for inspiration on what kind of page/pages I’m going to build for my site, I’ve become overwhelmed with a plethora of examples. So many great examples!

About pages. Now pages. Uses pages. Blogrolls. Links. Every time I think I know what I want to do, I see another site that is doing something else cool and there are just so many excellent options.

But I have limiting factors. For one, I am not a web designer. For two…no, there is no two. That’s really my biggest obstacle. Well, that and time. Give me limitless knowledge and infinite time, and I’ll whip up a super shiny homepage. For now, though, I’ll need to accept my limitations.

That does not mean, however, that there is not a path forward. I just need to keep reminding myself to take this thing one step at a time. Step by step, inch by inch. So that’s what I’ll do.

The first step, then, is to make a plan for my plan. And that’s what today’s goal has been. I’m deciding on starting with an About page. This seems to make the most sense to me, so it’s what I’ll start with.

But I’m also going to keep these great example tabs open, and I’m going to keep adding to them as I go. I know each one will serve as further inspiration down the road, when I have the ability to add more.

With that decision made, I will spend tomorrow doing research and drafting up some ideas of how I want my page/pages to look. And of course I’ll continue to post the results of that process here.

Because that’s what happens when you build a plane while you’re flying it. It’s out there for everyone to see as it’s happening. Would I prefer a comfortably lit hangar to build in private? Absolutely! But I also know that I would abandon the build and just grab a good book instead. So here I’ll be, hammering away. Hopefully it can serve to help someone else down the road.