If you are a more visual thinker, building your own theme without needing to first know how to code can really make all the difference.
Get a preview of the Headway theme. Headway is among the original WordPress Drag & Drop theme frameworks and has a solid code base behind it. Headway will allow you to build your site how you envision it without a bloated code base or load time.
If you still love to dive in from a code based approach, Headway works with that as well. Take a quick peak at Headway Hooks and Child Themes.