2 Magento Category Landing Pages Page Customization and Hover Menu

In magento there is no built in ability to show all categories and subcategories in a grid format as a landing page. I need to have it customized to display subcategories. Something similar like this [login to view URL] And then when you click that particular category say 'Acrylics & Reline' [login to view URL] You are led to another set of sub categories and the option to view all the products in all the subcategories for the main category. The 'Category Image' 'View by brand name' and 'view by manufacturer' not unnecessary.  We also would like to have our left hand menu to open up a list of sub categories when you hover over the menu similar to the navigation header menu at the top.  I know there are guides available to do sub category landing pages in magento such as this [login to view URL] but I was unable to get it to work, but most likely you won't have to recreate all the code from scratch. Magento experience is required, along with PHP.