Welcome! (I moved this to projects so you can get individual suggestions on your requirements.)
That sounds like a very ambitious undertaking!
You can use the quick browse lists in the community – created wiki to quickly find various threads by subject. In particular, you might want to take a look in the project report section at the “get started” list. It has a lot of interesting threads, including “top 10 uses for home automation”, " what device should I get next?", Etc. There’s also an impress your friends list which is fun to look at.
