Hello Jamie89,
Well done for steering clear of frames of any sort ... they won't help your website as it's sounds pretty straight forward.
To get the layout right you need to use a combination of STYLE and DIVs. Here's an example:
<html>
<head>
<style>
#header{
height:100px;
background:red;
}
#menu{
float:left;
width:200px;
height:400px;
}
#content{
float:left;
}
</style>
</head>
<body style="margin:0px; padding:0px;">
<div id="header"><img src="yourlogo.gif" /></div>
<div id="menu">
<a href="index.html">Home</a><br />
<a href="aboutme.html">About Me</a><br />
</div>
<div id="content">
YOUR CONTENT GOES HERE
</div>
</body>
</html>
I would recommend http://www.w3schools.com to get your going but hopefully the above template should give you an insight into how CSS and HTML work together to provide layout. Obviously it's horrible and garish ... but then things that take less than 5 minutes to write often are!
Good luck with it and come back to us if you need to.
Regards,
David