Web Page Design Layout

Whenever I re-vamp my page, I like to sketch it out a little on paper, first. Then I decide on a color scheme, experiment with that, because you want it to be easy on the eyes. The color scheme shouldn't be too busy. A solid colored background, 1 color for text and an off color for links (I usually use white for the links then change set the visited link color to the text color). You can get some good java scripts for menus and stuff at dynamicdrive.com.