On one hand I hear this and on the other I hear that and I can't reconcile.

[dgent]

That's all well and good.

I guess I need an open source "order taking" system and that's it.

We have no desire to take money through the site. Right now and for quite some time, I need no more just an order form format for our garden shed shop.

You can do that easy with Zencart. Use the 'COD' payment gateway only (so no payments needs to be made but an order is still processed etc), and put in the product listing fields that the customer can select/enter their requirements.

So orders are processed and received, no money changes hands, and all relatively simple.