You have seen how to apply a page layout to specific pages, but to apply a specific template to your store's home page, you can add more specific layout instructions in your theme's local.xml
file.
The layout handle for the home page is cms_index_index
. So, to assign the home page the one column layout, you will add the following to your Magento theme's local.xml
file:
<cms_index_index> <reference name="root"> <action method="setTemplate"> <template>page/1column.phtml</template> </action> </reference> </cms_index_index>
Note, though, that the layout can be overwritten through Magento's CMS tool, so this is unlikely to work in practice. You can navigate to CMS | Pages in your Magento installation's administration panel and set your page's layout using the Layout drop-down field in the Design tab:
An incomplete list of layout handles available in Magento is available at http://www.magentocommerce.com/boards/viewthread/2471/.