Nicholas Clooney

Building My Own Subspace Builder

Last month, my girlfriend mentioned she needed a sleek portfolio site, and I realized I’d been meaning to start a personal tech blog.

I wanted something lightweight—easy to spin up and even easier to tweak. So I dove in: building a small 11ty + Tachyons site from scratch, pushing every iteration live in under a minute, and watching her face light up with each update even though she’s halfway across the country.

Repo link: https://github.com/NicholasClooney/11ty-subspace-builder

Table of Contents

  1. Motivation
  2. Why 11ty?
  3. Tachyons for CSS
  4. Special shoutout to ChatGPT
  5. Design inspirations
  6. The "magic" part
  7. Key Takeaways

Motivation

I had almost no experience building websites or writing CSS before this, so diving into Eleventy and Tachyons felt like learning a fun new craft. I love building things for people I care about, and seeing their reaction to each new feature is incredibly rewarding. This project wasn’t just about code—it was about sharing progress in real time, learning a few new tools, and having fun along the way.

Why 11ty?

  • Super lightweight & zero-config: Start writing Markdown and Nunjucks immediately—no webpack or complex installs.
  • Nunjucks templating: Easy to create reusable layouts and partials, even for newcomers.

Tachyons for CSS

  • Utility-first classes: Style directly in markup (pa3, bg-near-black, etc.), so there’s no CSS hide-and-seek.
  • Discoverable & consistent: Tachyons’ naming conventions are intuitive, making it fast to prototype.

Special shoutout to ChatGPT

I started thinking of our workflow like pair programming: ChatGPT as the driver—hands on deck, writing keyframe animations, toggling nav classes, refining selectors—and me as the navigator—watching, providing feedback, and keeping us on course. It’s been a joy collaborating this way and has completely transformed my troubleshooting process.

Design inspirations

  • Studied a few slick sites to nail the hamburger menu behavior and visuals.
  • Added a simple fade+slide keyframe to give the nav a polished feel without adding bulk.

The "magic" part

  • Local edits → git push → Cloudflare Pages deploy: ~30 seconds.
  • My girlfriend across the country refreshes the URL and sees the latest tweaks almost instantly. Truly mind-blowing for a lightweight setup.

Key Takeaways

  • Developer-first workflow: 11ty’s zero-config approach lets you focus on content, not tooling.
  • Rapid styling: Tachyons makes CSS painless and maintainable.
  • CI/CD simplicity: A simple git push triggers Cloudflare Workers to deploy the site in seconds.