“In stream” custom theme for a category

I’ve seen how to change the theme for when you navigate to a specific categories page but is there a (relatively) easy way to do this for the front page? The effect I’m looking for is like Kottke’s remaindered links or Darink Fireball’s linked list; basically a tumble blog interpolated with lengthier entries.

I tried searching “remaindered links” and “linked list” along with various combinations of “custom”/”category”/”theme” but nothing relevant came up.

Thanks!