Yes it's a worthless bottom end bit of junk. So it's PERFECT for your needs! A traveller or huffy/roadmaster/whatever is just the ticket for a first restoration because there's no pressure, if something goes wrong it doesn't matter.
Obviously the first thing to do is strip all those bits off there, it looks in reasonable shape so that shouldn't be difficult but spraying everything you can see with wd40 and leaving it for a day won't hurt. Rather than lashing out on a full tool set, on this kind of bike all you need is a couple of screwdrivers, vice grips and shifter (which you probably already have) and a crank extractor like this one
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/BIKE-TOOL-CO ... 3cca939453" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;.
For stripping the paint you can just use sandpaper and elbow grease, or an angle grinder with a wire wheel but IME even the angle grinder takes an inordinate amount of time and is pretty hard work. My preferred method nowadays is to get it sandblasted and a primer powdercoat, costs me about $35 at my local powdercoaters.