I suspect I’m missing something obvious, but I’ve tinkered with the appearance and settings to no avail. Does this require a plug-in or is it as simple as checking or unchecking a box? Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Your site and the reference one are using two different themes, so you cannot actually expect them to act identically.
From what I see you seem to be using Thanks, Roy theme; you should have an Item File Gallery option in Appearance / Configure Theme, try unchecking it and see whether you solve the problem.
Btw: if I may, I suggest to change the color of the site title (“East of East”), as it is almost unreadable over the background image you’ve chosen.