I've been writing this blog since 2008. Previously I was using BlogEngine.net to power my blog but lately I've been on the lookout for something a bit different.

I love Wordpress and the ease of use that brings, especially when upgrading or installing modules. At the time of writing there is no 'one click' install option for BlogEngine and updating my blog was becoming a chore with each release.

I first heard about Orchard way back in 2010 but it was very much in it's infancy at that stage. However, with the recent release of 1.7 I decided to give it a go and move my blog over to it. I also thought that It was time I had a new theme for my blog as my old one was looking a bit rusty around the edges.

I had a chat with my wife Rebecca FitzGerald-Smith about the type of design I was looking for. I love the look of TheVerge.com and Polygon.com and I wanted something similar for my own blog. I knew Twitter Bootstrap fairly well and wanted to have a site with a responsive design. As you can see the design of the blog is great and very different to the current crop of free themes out there. As this was my first real experience with Orchard I found the customization process a little difficult to get into. Like all things though, persistence pays off. Over the next few weeks I'm going to blog about my process and the 'gotcha's I hit while theming Orchard.

I'd like to say a big thanks to everyone who tweeted me, mailed me and even supplied me with modules to help get my blog up and running. I especially want to say thanks to Nicholas Mayne, Sipke Schoorstra, Bertrand Le Roy and Piotr Szmyd for all the help and advice they gave! The Orchard community is one of the best out there in the open source space.

I'm just starting out on my Orchard CMS journey but I can tell it's going to be a fun ride!