I am so sick of this doggone website.

It had been a good 18 months since I’d updated the design. It didn’t use HTML5. It wasn’t mobile responsive. And the form and function of the site no longer fit the content as well as it could.

Worst of all, it just looked … old. It felt tired. I needed a change, but I’m no coder. Nor did I want to pay for a custom design.

Ever had a similar string of thoughts yourself about your own site?

Here’s how to remedy that …

It’s time to get re-energized

The dissatisfaction I was feeling with my site was quickly alleviated when I installed one of our new Genesis Pro themes — Agency Pro. (Working for Copyblogger does have its perks.)

Just a couple fun hours of tinkering and customizing later, I had a brand-new, cutting-edge design that would have been impossible for me to do by myself and would have cost me thousands of dollars to hire someone to do for me.

I felt great about my site again and energized to create new content for it.

Want to get re-energized about your own site?

Here are five other sites that serve as pristine examples of how you can have a modern, mobile-ready website darn near right out of the box … all for less than $100.

Be bold, be Beautiful

These first two websites employ our new Beautiful Pro Theme.

This first site, AllisonVesterfelt.com, shows you how naturally alluring the design for Beautiful is with only basic customizations being made.

Compare it to the demo and you will see that it didn’t take much for the Vesterfelts to take Beautiful and make it completely their own.

Taking Beautiful even further is WhitneyCapps.com …

This site, designed by Erin Ulrich, adds a textured background and substitutes a stylish text logo for the horizontal header image.

These two sites put the simplicity and versatility of Genesis on full display.

You can get a gorgeous new design right out of the box, or you can take it to the next level by employing one of the Genesis community’s many talented developers to add even more of your own unique flair.

See the Beautiful Pro Theme demo here, or purchase Beautiful for immediate use on your site here.

Beyond design with Sixteen Nine

Sixteen Nine, the recently released child theme that all Synthesis customers receive upon signing up, keeps the nav bar and widgets simple so that the audience’s full attention is on the content.

You can see this in action at PlacesBeyond.com, a site chronicling a motorcycle journey from California to Tierra del Fuego, Argentina.

Check out the Sixteen Nine demo here, and you’ll see how closely Places Beyond sticks with the basic format of the child theme while still carving out a unique feel thanks to the design acumen of Megan Gray.

If you are not a Synthesis customer, you can get Sixteen Nine for your site here.

Innovating with eleven40

The eleven40 theme has long been one of StudioPress’ best sellers. With the additions made to the Pro version — HTML5 markup, mobile responsiveness, a layout that incorporates modern design trends — eleven40 will surely remain at or near the top of the most popular list.

TodaysInnovativeWoman.com is an impressive example of what is possible when a solid theme is infused with the creativity of a great designer like Jennifer Bourn.

You can compare Jennifer’s work to the eleven40 demo here, or you can dive right in and add eleven40 to your site here.

Write away with Wintersong

This final example is another that shows the out-of-the-box power of Genesis, specifically the Wintersong Pro theme.

Wintersong is one of many StudioPress themes that began as the design of StudioPress founder Brian Gardner’s personal website. (You can see the latest such design, The 411, right here and in the image at the top of this post.)

The site pictured below, Just-Thauna.com, takes the base Wintersong design and adds nothing more than a custom header image (which can be uploaded and formatted in less than a minute from the dashboard) and a new color scheme to create an ideal look for Thauna’s personal blog.

Thauna is a designer herself, specializing in Genesis designs. So she knows how to add flair to a Genesis site, even if she didn’t do too much to Wintersong for her own site — she didn’t need to.

Check out the demo for Wintersong here, or go ahead and grab a copy for yourself here.

101,000+ people take WordPress further with StudioPress

Our Genesis Framework for WordPress empowers you to quickly and easily build incredible websites with WordPress.

With search-optimized code and functions, 55 turn-key designs, state-of-the-art security, and unlimited support, updates, and websites you can build, Mashable calls Genesis the “best of the best” among premium WordPress themes.

Serious online publishers trust Genesis to provide a solid foundation for their sites. By serious, I mean people planning to get somewhere with this Internet thing.

Whether you’re a novice, or an advanced developer, Genesis provides you with the rock-solid infrastructure to take WordPress places you never thought it could go.

Pick up Genesis (and a child theme) today!

Need a little help?

If you have questions about Genesis that you’d like to get answered before purchasing, please contact our Support Division directly.

If you are an existing StudioPress customer, please log in to MyStudioPress for all support questions.

For non-support related discussions about WordPress, CSS, design, and site feedback, please jump into the StudioPress Community Forums anytime.

Thanks!