When you install Ubuntu with the default partitions, for some reason, it uses only half of the available disk. If you forget to create a home/var/whatever partition during the install process, you can do it after the fact. To use all of the remaining space in a volume group, you can use the following syntax:
lvcreate -l 100%VG -n home-lv ubuntu-vg
Of course, this is all in the man pages. This is just a quick note because I always forget the syntax.