I am exploring creating a Joomla site.  I definitely want a dynamic site that can be updated easily, thus my interest in Joomla.  I use a WordPress blog and really like how simple it is to add new content "on-th-fly"and am seeking that sort of ease of maintenance.  I do not want to go the FrontPage, slow, laborious route any longer. 

Let me describe the website,  It will be a site dedicated to rural living / homesteading.  I want it to be very content rich.  I need it to be able to display approx 10 different categories, such as Solar Power, Water Storage, Cooking, Food Preservation, Forums, etc, on the main page.  I'd like each category to have it's own separate "box", so they display as almost like a table, with space separating each cell or frame.  Eaxh category will hold a short "teaser" message / graphic and lead you to the more detailed page on the subject (link).  I'd also like four columns inf possible, or three "wide" ones. 

I can't find any Joomla templates on the Lunar Pages site.  If there are any, if someone could steer me towards them, I would sure appreciate it.  I am including links to a couple of paid templates that are at least close to what I am looking for.  I don't mind paying a fair price for a template, so if anybody has any suggestions there, I'm all ears as well.

http://demo.rockettheme.com/

http://demotemplates.joomlashack.com/weblogic/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=18&Itemid=39

Thanks in Advance for any help on this!!

Doug

There are loads of Joomla templates out there, many are free to use as well. Just do a Google for Free Joomla Templates, most have demo's available so you can see what you are looking at before adding it to your site.

Once you've found your preferred template, as a basis, you can always tweak it! Download it to your pc, log in to Joomla admin backend, Installers>Templates and New should offer you the option to upload a new template, usually the entire Zip file, unless it's got a number of zips inside it for different colour templates for example, in which case, unzip the original zip and then upload the chosen zip.

To work on a template, not easy, certainly not at first, there are a couple of tutorials if you want to go that way, otherwise my method is to have a test site that only I have access to, and play around with that before going live with the changes.