How can I control the appearance of Home Page?

Home Page is the first content that your visitors see. There is a simple rule on deciding what will be that content. Connect to the administration panel and select Menu -> mainmenu. You will see the list of menu items that form this menu. The first menu item is the one that will be displayed as your front page content. So, if you choose to be the Frontpage component (default option), then your front page will be a list of the articles you selected to appear on front page. If you decide to be something else, like a menu item of type "Table - Content Section", that will be the first content your visitors will see. In every case, you can control further the appearance, by modifying the parameteres associated with the first menu item.