← All case studies

Past to Present Photos & Estates

From broken WordPress plugin to production static site in five days.

The Challenge

Melissa's WordPress site ran on Elementor Pro. The plugin's license lapsed and the page builder broke: sections collapsed, styling cracked, and every future edit risked breaking something else.

She reached out over Facebook Messenger describing the damage. After confirming a long-term fix would cost more than a rebuild, she approved a full static site rebuild outside WordPress.

Before

  • WordPress + Elementor Pro (license expired)
  • Layout actively breaking on live site
  • Contact Form 7 inactive: submissions unnoticed
  • No sitemap, schema, or SEO setup

After

  • Static Astro site: no plugins to break
  • All 9 testimonials preserved & verified
  • Working contact form on Resend
  • Full SEO: schema, sitemap, OG tags, canonical URLs

Scope & Approach

Six pages rebuilt from scratch, same visual identity: Home, Photo & Media, Estate Sales & Downsizing, Testimonials, About, Contact.

Every piece of business information (service area, bio, all nine client testimonials) was audited against the Wayback Machine and Melissa's own Facebook history before a line of code was written. Nothing from ten years of client trust got lost in the move.

Tech Stack

Astro Tailwind CSS Resend Vercel JSON-LD LocalBusiness Schema

Timeline

Day 1 Damage report → authorization. Confirmed rebuild made more sense than long-term plugin workarounds.
Day 1–2 Research & asset audit. Wayback Machine crawl, Facebook messages cross-referenced to confirm all nine testimonials and service details.
Day 2–3 Full rebuild. Astro + Tailwind, six pages, optimized imagery, scroll animations, LocalBusiness schema, sitemap.
Day 3–4 Design refinement. Added FAQ, "Why Choose Us," before/after gallery, mobile sticky call button.
Day 4–5 Client review & fixes. Wrong address, a line-wrap bug in a table, contrast issue on one heading: all fixed same-day.
Day 5 Domain cutover. Formspree swapped for Resend contact form. DNS migrated from HostPapa to Vercel; pasttopresent.ca live on the new build.

The Response

Wow… first impression… I love it. Thank you so much for doing this. You definitely made it a smoother and more appealing website! - Melissa Fillmore, Past to Present Photos & Estates

The only note back was a wrong street address: fixed within the hour. Payment cleared the same day.

Result

9/9 Testimonials Preserved
0 Plugins Left to Break
~5 Days to Live

Live site: pasttopresent.ca

pasttopresent.ca

Live embed. Open the full site in a new tab ↗

Got a broken site or a rebuild in mind?

Let me take a look and tell you, plainly, what it'll take to fix.

Get a Free Audit