Before you decide to do fixed I suggest you ride one first to see if that sort of style even appeals to you.

This is still an easy project to undertake as I got a very rough UO-8 that had some new(er) sugino cranks on it, I painted it, and ghetto SS it for bike polo. It's a fun bike, and was an easy project for me to undertake even when I didn't know much about bikes.

As for paint, do you want to do rattle can or powdercoat? You can get decals for those UO-8s online so don't worry about it being a generic bike after paint.