[chrishajer]

The bbPress forum is not really a part of the blog, it’s sort of next to it. With integration, you get login information shared between WP and bbPress, but you will need to do the CSS customization to a bbPress template to make it look like your blog.

And yes, you can play all you want with the bbPress CSS, it won’t affect your blog at all. They’re totally separate files. I would making a new directory for your new template, so you can always revert to the default template if something goes wrong.

If you search the forums, there are some people who have had a lot of success making their bbPress installation look like their blog.