It looks like the code you would need to edit for the footer is in style.css
.footer-content .footer_wrap {
background: url(images/footer-bg.png);
margin: 0 auto;
padding-top: 30px;
width: 1040px;
}
You would want to change the background element in that code. You could use something like
background-color:#FFFFFF
Which would make the background white. Are you comfortable editing the CSS?
Also for the posts, what do you have set for “Front Page Displays” in Settings > Reading?
I have set the front page display as “Your latest Posts”