Use WP for a Regular Site

Hello,
I’m wanting to setup a friend with a site that he can easily manage. I use WP on my own site for a blog.

But on this site for the friend, I don’t want it to appear as a blog really, just like a normal site.

I had planned to use WP because the backend is so bad ass and easy to use, perfect for him.

I was going to strip the template of most all of the links besides the PAGES section. This site will only have pages and not any blog posts.

The first problem I ran into, is by default the WP search does not search the pages, only posts. But I found a plugin that would do both, so that one is good.

The next problem I need to address is on the front page, I would like to show a specific page, instead of posts.

Is this done easily? If so, do you see any other problems I might run into?

Thank you for your input!
theMaab