Developing a barebones zen cart template

Every time I start a Zen Cart job I have to decide which of the available templates would be best to start with. My template of choice for a while was Simple Zen, but it still required a lot of modifications before it fit all of my needs. I recently discovered Blueprint CSS and thought it would be a great framework for my own barebones zen cart template. What are the advantages of using blueprint? I don't think I could explain it better than the authors themselves, so here is a quote taken directly from the blueprint home page:

Blueprint is a CSS framework, which aims to cut down on your development time. It gives you a solid foundation to build your project on top of, with an easy-to-use grid, sensible typography, useful plugins, and even a stylesheet for printing.

What does Blueprint have to offer?

• A CSS reset that eliminates the discrepancies across browsers.
• A solid grid that can support the most complex of layouts.
• Typography based on expert principles that predate the web.
• Form styles for great looking user interfaces.
• Print styles for making any webpage ready for paper.
• Plugins for buttons, tabs and sprites.
• Tools, editors, and templates for every step in your workflow.

I created a brand new zen cart site that I will be using for testing and demonstrating new things. Zen Cart Demo Site. My template is in very early development and what you see right now is the result of combining a basic 950px 24 column blueprint framework with the style sheet from the default zen cart template. The layout is hard coded with only a left and center column, but I intend to make the column display update dynamically in response to the zen cart admin settings. Demo products have been installed to give me something to work with.

The goal of this project is to work my way through the key template files, replacing the zen cart markup with blueprint as needed. Then to systematically work my way through the zen cart style sheet removing all of the deprecated classes. If all goes according to plan, I will end up with a solid, cross-browser template that will be very easy to build on.

Before I can move onto the template design I need to first get rid of some of zen cart's default layout elements that are cluttering the page. This is a very quick list of my first steps after a fresh zen install.

Configuration > Index Listing: I like to turn everything off, and selectively enable later if needed.
Configuration > Stock
Similarly you may disable the display of new, featured and special products on the shopping cart page if you choose. The location of this setting under 'stock' can make it a little hard to find.

Configuration > Layout Settings:
Use split-login page : True
Personal preference, but I feel that this option gives the login page a cleaner look.

CSS Buttons : Yes
Using css button styling allows you to quickly style all buttons in your shop without the need to upload a bunch of images.

Footer - Show IP Address status : 0
I'm really not sure why you need to see your IP address when shopping online, and in my opinion this could actually scare away the less computer savvy customers who may think you are tracking them in some way.

We now have a relatively clean slate to build upon. I will continue to post updates as I progress with the template design.