There are hosts out there (geocities, NBCi.com, fortunecity) that will host your website for free in exchange for advertising (they put stuff on your pages). I'd say there about 60% reliable. I got fed up and went with 11net.com that costs $7 a month.
As far as building the site some of those hosts (mentioned above) have quick and easy ways to build a site but I guarantee you'll never get anything that looks that great. If you really want to get into it get a copy of FrontPage and Photoshop and learn each one.
Pete
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You can't catch tomorrow what you kill today - please practice catch and release.