Improve look of Joomla/Virtuemart site

I have a Joomla/Virtuemart site that I created myself. It has a very minimalist designed template that I purchased from a template company. I would like someone to: *Improve the look of the home page and make it look more appealing to visitors. This may involve some graphic design and adding modules. I would like to be guided on what sort of elements I should add to the home page. I think it looks a little amateurish at present. *Change the products list page to display 2 items per row and maybe increase the thumbnail sizes (I know this is pretty easy but I just don't have time to do it myself) *Increase the searchability of the site (SEO). I have done a little bit, added keywords and metadata etc but I would like more guidance on this. *Show me how to use the parent/child part of virtuemart. I need to be able to add a product type with different colours and add quantities per colour. At the moment I can only add quantities per product type. The parent/child thing doesn't seem to work properly.