Just a note, I'm not all that experienced with coding so details instructions would be greatly appreciated.
1. On the individual blog post pages, is there a way to remove the search bar and the "pages" navigation from the page? Also is there a way to widen those pages by an inch?
Search bar? Sidebar is widgetized, so go to widgets and customize as you like.
2. On the top of the pages, where the tweeting bird is, what exactly is the bird supposed to be tweeting? The bloggers last tweet on Twitter? Or actions the reader is taking?
Twitter plugin shows your latest Twitter messages.
3. On the demo site you have posted, on the home page below the tabbed category section there is a block of wording etc. How did you get that there because I have no such section on my blog?
This is Select Style text for demo only. If you'd like to insert text, you can open your index.php and after
<div id="bottom-arch">...(some code)...</div><div style="clear: both;"/>
you can insert
<div class="post-top"></div>
<div class="main-post"><div class="single-pad">
<div class="tit"><h1>Your title</h1></div>
<div class="feat-data"> </div>
<div style="clear: both;"></div>
<div class="content">
.....(your text)....
<div style="clear: both;"></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="post-bottom"></div>