Need With New Widget Areas

Hey everyone;
I’m relatively new to WordPress, and am trying to help revamp a website that had a custom theme developed for it.

http://sandbox.coresolutions.ca

Some of the changes that have been asked of me will be simplest to implement if I can widgetize the theme more than it was already (previously only had a sidebar).

I’m trying to set it up so that the homepage will have 3 columns as widget areas, and that the rest of the site will use the sidebar that already existed.

I’ve done some basic work to this effect already, but am running into a problem with it. I’ll add widgets into my 3 column areas, then preview those widgets and it looks like it’s working fine. Then I return to wp_admin/widgets and after refreshing the screen, none of my widgets are there any longer. Can somebody please help me solve the case of the disappearing widgets?

Thanks

PS –> Here’s the code that I’m using so far:

In my functions.php
[Code moderated as per the Forum Rules. Please use the pastebin]

I’m sure that I must be missing something…
Any help you can offer will be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance