The way i would go about it is create a custom post type named “porjects” and use it to post my projects, that way you can easily
- exclude these posts from the rest of your post.
- associate thumbnails.
- associate description.
- associate ant custom field you want.
- create sub/child posts to each project.
- tag with incomplete or discontinued for easy querying and listing.
It just seems alot easier that way, so your best bet is to start of with a custom post type.
Now if registering a custom post type looks like too much for you, you can start of with one of the many “custom post type UI” plugins available.
Hope this helps.