CMS-like layout

Hey all,

I’ve been using wordpress for quite some time in a subdirectory of my site (called journal). I consider it to be the best journal tool out there.

Recently, I’ve decided to expand my site. Up to this point, I’ve had a .htaccess file redirect users who go to the root of my domain to my journal section, where wordpress takes over. I’d like to replace the root of the domain with a splash page that would link things like a projects section, a resume section, and the journal section (with complete archives under that):

/ (splash page, links to other sections)
/projects (projects section)
/resume (resume section/ subsections)
/journal
/journal/archives/YYYY/MM/DD/….

The trick is, I’d like to have this all managed by wordpress, with the Journal section being a standard WP journal, and the main index (splash) and non-journal sections off the root as WordPress Pages. It looks like I could use the static front page hacks for the main section, but it doesn’t look like that will play well with making Pages and subpages for the resume and projects sections/ subsections.

Additional icing on the cake would probably be being able to theme separate sections differently (more the journal having a different look and feel than the main page, etc)

Right now, I think my best bet may even be to have two separate WP installs, one in the doc root, and one in the journal section.

Is doing this with one install remotely possible? has anyone accomplished such a layout? I’d like to hear how you did it. I’ve even considered other systems (MT, textpattern), but after a week of hacking with them all, I think WordPress is the closest in terms of overall features and functionality (archive layouts, etc).

thanks in advance!

-Chris