Help Create This?

[Abronsyth]

Hey guys, I'm not good enough at CSS to properly code how I want this layout for my site to look. I have an image of what I want it to look like (without all the images I plant on it having), but I need help with placing things, in the CSS and HTML portion of the theme.
See:


All the colors and such I can do on my own just fine, but I don't know how to place everything properly.

Also, does anyone know how to make drop down menus? So that the mouse can hover over say..."Explore" and then it drops down (on hover) to show say...like this:
[Explore]
{North}
{East}
{Central}
{West}
{South}

In [brackets] is the main button, and {} is the buttons you see when hovering over [].

So, anyone who can help me?