Turn into Articles Website

Hi there!

I would like to use WordPress as a CMS program. What plugins would enable me to do this? Here is a little layout of what my site will be like:

Home Page – Shows titles of recently added articles and most popular articles with a little description from each.

Articles – Shows a list of all the articles which can then be organized according to category (XP, Vista, Internet, WordPress, Blogger).

Forum – A forum powered by bbPress that looks like WordPress site.

Chat – A chat page that will be integrated with the bbPress forum.

About US – A single page that describes my website.

Contact Us – a page with a little information and then a form that allows people to e-mail me.

On all the pages I would like have the right side as a sort of customizable part which enables me to put whatever I want (advertisements, related articles, popular articles, ect..)

I would also like the footer to be customizable sort of like what is on the bottom of https://www.labnol.org.

Any help is appreciated!