Thanks to Derik (who truly is a godlike nerd!), I have the biggest problem of my template solved. You can look at my test site here. Unfortunately, the topmost table cell just won’t behave. “26 pixels!” I tell it. “Whatever, bitch!” it responds. So I will have to decide how I want to deal with that little issue before I can apply the design to the rest of the pages, and then finally port over all my posts and comments.
It’s been a long road…