Ok, so this post is maybe 4 weeks too late, but I hope you find this information useful.
First, I really
really recommend going through
PHP: The Right Way before you make any big decisions about architecture, framework, or any of that stuff. The site will give you a good idea of the current status of development with PHP in this millennium. It's very important to have an idea of what's out there, what others are using, and what the common ways of getting things done are.
Second,
use Composer.
Composer will make managing external libraries and components a breeze for you. It'll give your project some structure, you'll have some common ground with other PHP code, and that's always a good thing.
Third,
enable error reporting WITH notices during development. Preferably, have the errors show up on the page so that you'll know something is wrong, because something will always be wrong and you'll get burned for not catching things from notices during development.
That's about it, let me know over private message if you have questions and maybe we can set up a chat or something!