Agreed: The site sorely needs to be brought up-to-date visually.
You may benefit from one of the online web template sites that will let you download a ready-made design and use it as-is, or (if you're good with photoshop) make light to heavy modifications to it. The
Read an E-Book Week site did this with
FreeWebsiteTemplates.com, and it made a huge difference in the look of Rita's site.
There are, of course, sites that will charge you for a template, but I'd start with the free services, because the template variety and quality aren't bed.