It’s absolutely possible on the same WordPress install.
How I do it, is I generally reserve the ‘posts’ sections for the site’s news, and make a Custom Post Type for other things, such as your projects list.
Have a look at the codex for custom post types, and the template hierarchy
To separate the blog posts from your projects custom post type, simple add something like this is the appropriate template file:
query_posts( 'post_type=projects' ); // For projects
Or
query_posts( 'post_type=post' ); // For posts
query_posts works if you’re using the main query.
Another solution, if you have no extra data to keep about projects, is to simply store your projects in ‘posts’ as well, and associate a category to them.
query_posts( 'post_type=post&cat=5' ); //EX if category id 5 = projects category