Since this is essentially a review, I decided to use the TwentyFourteen theme used in the WP Essentials course rather than the Builder themes I had previously installed.
I actually like some of the functionality of the the TwentyFourteen theme. It has a lot more features that can be optimized from the theme customizer than the Builder theme I was using before.
I added the AddThis Share widget which is very handy. It was pretty easy to set up. The only thing I don’t like or couldn’t figure out is how to add the widget to the actual blog page. The widget only shows on the individual post page.
There are a few aspects of the layout that I wish could be edited from the customizer, such as header image location. It would be nice if you could choose whether the image can appear above or below the main menu.
I will continue to play with different themes and will likely go into the css to experiment with layout and design.