"spotlight" on the Home page

Hello,
I started using WordPress a couple of weeks ago and so far I like it. I’ve kind of found the layout/setup for my site in the way I want it except for one or two small things.

When pressing the “Home” button I end up on the home page as supposed but I’d like it to not show the latest posts like a normal blog, I would rather it be like in a newspaper or something similar. I’d like the first page to be shown show “small previews” of selected contents (I’d like it to show a picture from the latest gallery, picture could be random, excerpt from the latest post and so on..

I have searched through the different themes but could not really find one that features this (not without paying atleast and right now I don’t have a budget for that). I think this kind of feature is a plugin, but I might be wrong? I’d appreciate all help I can get! Thanks in advance!

Regards
John