You might need to create a table like frame structure in your layout.html file in order to position some things that way you want them. However like you I have forgotten most of what I knew about html and stuff.
Well this got me a step in the right direction I think. There was a reference to rightmenu in the layout.html file, so I changed it to leftmenu like I had done previously in the .css
This made the menus appear on top of the other stuff, but of course now the menus overlap the items on the page. Getting closer!