Question for designers

I am a novice designer at best. I have a website i would like to launch, but would like to be able to maintain it myself once the design was done. Is this possible? If i paid someone to design the basic layout for my site (it would have a navigation system, browse and search function...kind of along the lines of a place like myspace i guess. The only changing weekly would be advertisment or what have you. Is this possible for me to take over and do myself? Would i need the program they were using...yada? If this is possible then i was thinking of offering up the job here. I am going to do all the graphics and images, text. All i need is the hardcore stuff like navi system, browse, and personal blogging for each memember and user.

Thanks for any advice and help.