In my setup, I use "No Theme", and "render as DIV", and throw a whole bunch of custom CSS (via Display Settings) and javascript (via Free Nodelet Settings).

I have the screen divided in two, horizontally; the upper part is a scrolling window with the "main" content of the page, and the lower part is static (though it uses the browser's own scroll) containing the nodelets in a colored tile arrangement. Don't worry, it's not nearly as pretty as Windows 8.