Text Boxes on Homepage

Hi

I have set my homepage to be a static page and want to make it look really good by dividing it into boxes that are more like sections/separate pages in the CMS.. apparently this is better from a design point of view rather than building the homepage in the homepage page (if you know what I mean?)

Can anybody tell me how easy it is to set this up? I am not overly technical.. but I want the boxes to have different background colours etc with ‘featured images’. I’m not sure if this is a plugin or if I’d have to hardcode stuff or amend the css etc..??

Your help is much appreciated.

Many thanks
K