Capital direction keys after Ctrl-W move the window to that side of the layout. Ctrl-W+ and Ctrl-W- resize vertically; Ctrl-W< and Ctrl-W> horizontally. Ctrl-W= balances all windows.
Once you have splits, you'll want to rearrange them. The capital direction keys move the current window to the edge of the layout, replacing the surrounding splits with a clean side-by-side or top/bottom configuration.