Hiding left panel when using own homepage with Studio frameless skin

Hello! I'm working on adapting the Studio frameless skin to my project's needs, and am using my own custom homepage instead of the skin's. When the skin's homepage, the left and right panels are hidden by default, but when I use my own homepage, they're open by default. The screens that the end users will be using are not big, and the homepage looks very cluttered with the panels open. 

Is there a way to change this and only have the panels open after they've clicked over to a topic page?

Thanks for any ideas!

NOTE: I've been working with the Studio frameless skin specifically, but I think this applies to the other frameless skins as well, except Top Navigation (which doesn't fit my needs).