I don’t have alot of cash so I am willing to do the work myself. I paid someone on oDesk to convert two html/css pages as a templates so that I can convert my site to wordpress. The css markup was significantly different for the (index page and inside pages) so I had two templates created, the inside page is the “default” wordpress template page while the index page has also been templated. Although I can go back to the oDesk contractor for clarification, my assumption is that the hand holding will be minimal. Specifically, I have received the two templates but I am having trouble working with the index page, (it is a complex, 4 column, one fixed and 3 floating columns with header and footer). Can anybody send on a link to either a good book(s) or online tutorial(s) I can reference to get under the hood of wordpress so I can rebuild and add future content and pages to my site.
My favorite WP book (currently) is this one: http://digwp.com/book/
It’ll teach you lots of best practices when working with themes and WP in general. The book also contains some basic information on security, something that too many people neglect and is a topic that often doesn’t get the attention it deserves, which is quite stunning since WordPress sites get hacked the most on the web.
Anyway, to start, this site has listed a few tutorials on how to build your own theme from scratch.
Thanks for the suggestions, I will check it out.