I want to reduce my carbon footprint, and solar energy is completely renewable, and 100% clean energy, so I need help figuring out how to make solar panels that will power my entire house and will eliminate my reliance on the power grid completely (or at least 80%+).
Everything in the body of your question is laudable, and possible, except for the part about "cheap."
Solar electric is generally a large ($10k or more) up-front investment, and a cost savings over time, as well as environmental benefit. And in many areas, it would never recover its initial investment, not at today’s prices. Costs continue to fall, though.
The internet is full of sites that suggest you can power your whole house with just $200 or less of homemade panels. As to the information, you could probably find it through a bittorrent search site, by looking for "solar panel", and would see that the kind of information being sold is not practical at all. See http://www.nlcpr.com/Deceptions6.php for a rebuttal to these scams.
You could build your own solar water heater, and plans will come up in Google.