Changing Colors in Content / Side

Could you please provide a link to your site so I can take a look?

You shouldn’t be editing the theme files directly, or you’ll lose all your customizations when you next update the theme to the latest version.

An easy way to add custom CSS is to install the Jetpack plugin and activate the Custom CSS module. You’ll then add your custom CSS in the new stylesheet editor that’ll appear in your dashboard, under Appearance > Edit CSS.

As alternatives, you could either install a standalone custom CSS plugin, or create a child theme.

Adding this CSS to a child theme or custom CSS plugin’s editor will give you the following effect:

#content, #main .widget-area, #search-area, input#s {
	background-color: #fff;
}

Screenshot: https://cloudup.com/c2DGyUwEaCS

Let me know if this is what you’re after.

You can mix and match the CSS as you like to get the effect you want.

For example, you can try this:

#content {
     background-color: #e7e7e7;
}
#main .widget-area, #search-area, input#s {
	background-color: #5c4f3c;
}

That’s right, you can install the CSS editor via a plugin. Two different options if you go that route are the Custom CSS editor module in Jetpack, which is a multipurpose plugin that has different modules that you can toggle on and off.

You could also standalone custom CSS plugin if you prefer. You could have a look here to find one you like:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/search.php?q=custom+css

Excellent!

Looks like you got this sorted out – I’m seeing the custom colours on your site. Are you all set?

Here’s what I’m seeing: https://cloudup.com/cAnjcUsYl2S

Glad to hear it! Good luck with your site. 🙂