Ask HN: Web designer for side project?

I've got a side project that really could do with a new design, generally I would butcher a themeforest design however there really aren't any suitable ones due to the type of website, so I suppose my only option is to get one custom made.

I'm a bit adverse to places like oDesk/Freelancer as it's hard to judge how good someone is, also there isn't a massive budget at it's only a hobby with very little traffic/revenue.

Any suggestions would be great :)

The website is quite similar in content/style to that of stackoverflow, hence why most of the templates out there just don't really match up.