I think you're a bit over your head in all honestly, trying to create a graphical environment for a linux OS is a big undertaking. Have you looked at how KDE, gnome and the other GUIs work? If it makes you feel any better this would be over my head as well, I am not a programmer.
The thing I tell people is Linux is what you want it to be, think about it like a giant erector set, all the parts are there but do you have the knowledge to assemble them into what you want. Something that may also be of interest is the linux from scratch project,
http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/