This is how it looks

This is the general layout of my website. I need some suggestions. On the gray bar there are going to be my buttons. The bar on the top with the gradient. Should I make them buttons (like fancy boxes) or should I just make them plain Arial text. Also with the empty space thats below the text pane what should I pu. Should I just leave it empty? Any other suggestions would be welcome. Thank you

EDIT: there is a whit border around the whole thing and there is an alpha fade thing on the image like when you move your mouse it fades to another image. Its from that tutorial in Flash MX