Trying to understand Genesis concept better

[paulsibley]

I'm trying to understand a little better how the whole child theme concept works before committing myself to something that is beyond me. Hopefully someone will be able to help.

I get, I think, that each child theme will have its own home.php; functions.php; and style.css. So I can understand how changes are made to those areas. But does that mean we're restricted to the way Genesis works for the rest of our blog?

For instance, would I be able to reproduce what I've done with Lifestyle (http://www.paulsibley.net/) in Genesis - including such things as the way I've set out archive and tag pages to be similar to the homepage, and changes to the header? And, if so, would it be complex to do.

I'm guessing that new page templates would be handled in much the same way as they are now; is that right?

I'm not looking for how-to answers just yet, just if the how-to is within the scope of what a child theme is. It will help me to a better understanding, and to making a decision. I have a project I'm about to start work on, and was going to use Lifestyle, but wondering if I'd be better to use Genesis.

Grateful for any advice you can give me. Thanks.