New v1.4 home page different

I don’t see any extra lines? If you’re referring to the white section right above the keynote, that’s showing up because you have an empty text widget there (there is actually some Google code, but it’s not showing up). Anytime you add a widget, whether it’s empty or not it will activate that section and the background color and padding will show up. So once you remove it then that section will disappear if you don’t plan to use it.

The padding was added to this version for more space since that’s what a lot of users were requesting….plus it seems to be the standard/trend nowadays. You can always adjust the padding in certain places if you want.

Yes the padding is there because that’s what most people want. For example, look at their other theme Squareone – http://demo.appfinite.net/squareone/ There is just as much padding because thats where most designers are going nowadays, and everyone (including myself) is requesting this in themes now. You can easily reduce the padding by editing your css. In your case you can find the padding on line 1403 –

.home-feature-bg .wrap {
margin: 0 auto;
overflow: hidden;
padding: 120px 0 80px;
width: 1140px;
}

and also on line 1464 –

.home-feature-bg-alt .wrap {
margin: 0 auto;
overflow: hidden;
padding: 120px 0 80px;
width: 1140px;
}

as well as line 1521 –

.home-feature-bg-dark .wrap {
margin: 0 auto;
overflow: hidden;
padding: 120px 0 80px;
width: 1140px;
}

Adjusting those 3 lines will reduce the padding.