Alright, let’s dive into that Paula Dhier project mess I finally cleaned up last week. Been meaning to document this disaster since it cost me three weekends. Grab coffee ’cause this one’s juicy.
The Dumb Starting Point
So Tuesday night, I figured I’d knock out Paula Dhier’s layout before bed. Copied my old CSS grid setup since it worked before, right? Tossed components around like confetti:
- Shoved the gallery div left
- Stuck pricing tables center
- Dumped FAQ section bottom-right
Hit save. Opened browser. Instant spaghetti. Pricing tables overlapped gallery photos. FAQ box was halfway off-screen. Total clown fiesta.
Where I Screwed Up Big Time
Next morning coffee in hand, I crawled through the wreckage. Three facepalm moments jumped out:
- Nested five flex containers like onion layers (why??)
- Used absolute positioning on three critical divs (nightmare fuel)
- Ignored media queries for mobile (my phone literally showed one pixel)
Felt like my code barfed rainbow puke. Worst part? I’d done this exact stupidity before.
The Emergency Surgery
Grabbed my emergency toolkit: DevTools & shame. Step-by-step meltdown fix:
First purge: Nuked all position:absolute entries. Felt like untying Christmas lights.
Flex detox: Ripped out three nested flexboxes. Replaced with simple CSS Grid columns:
- Made parent container display: grid
- Set grid-template-columns: repeat(auto-fit, minmax(250px, 1fr))
- Threw gap: 1.5rem in between
Mobile triage: Slapped in max-width: 100% on all images. Added bare-bones media query:
- @media (max-width: 768px) {
- grid-template-columns: 1fr !important;
Reloaded. Layout snapped into place like LEGOs. Almost cried.
The Aftermath
Took one hour to fix what six hours of bad coding broke. Moral? Stop overcomplicating layouts when simple grid works. And test on your dang phone BEFORE bedtime.
