Hi @Michele Hartley,
We are sorry to know that you’are facing problems with editing the theme. We will do our best to get you the satisfactory version for your site.
To change the background color for the site, please login to the admin area and browse to “Appearance >> Customize >> Colors”. On this interface, please select the color that you wish and the site will update with that as the background color.
The side bar is displayed via widgets so please check the widget section and add widgets to display them in the sidebar. You could refer our documentation for more information. Please let us know if you find issues getting the widgets back.
Hope this would help resolve your queries.
If you still find your site not as per your need, please feel free to drop us a message here and we will get back asap.
Regards,
Support Team
Promenade Themes