How to build portfolio navigation without portfolio feature?

Hey all! I'm looking to build a personal site that includes very different domain areas. I'd like to base the homepage off of the Nova template, however utilizing portfolio pages isn't working for me as portfolio pages ALWAYS link to the next 'project' in the portfolio. I don't believe there is a way to change that bottom navigation and it just won't make sense for my purposes to allow that.

Do I create a homepage gallery of images that just link to separate main nav pages? In this case, there won't be hover over text like there is on portfolio images to provide context into the domain area... Feel like the functionality is so close that I may be missing something simple to achieve what I am looking for. Any help would be greatly appreciated! 

Thanks!