Never built a site before, but wanted my own "blogging"and picture site. Built using Sandvox. Opinions? nothing special but if anything really stands out please let me know
http://www.drivehalffull.co.uk
http://www.drivehalffull.co.uk
I think your body text is a skosh too small. When you use a serif font, you want your text to be a bit bigger than normal for better legibility. The size used for the header menu is about the smallest I'd go.
On the blog page, I don't think you have enough visual separation between posts. How about making each post a separate "box" with the background showing between them, as it does between the menu bar and the header or the menu bar and the content area?