How to Add a Sidebar to a WordPress Genesis Theme That Doesn’t Have One

Posted on: November 10, 2014 1 Comment

If you have found a Genesis theme that you love, but it doesn’t have a sidebar, don’t worry. You can add a sidebar without much trouble.

First, go to your Theme Editor under Appearance -> Editor. In the Theme Functions (functions.php) file on the right  you should find a line that says something like this:

//* Unregister layout settings

Under that line, you should see a bunch of functions like this:

genesis_unregister_layout( 'content-sidebar' );

These functions unregister various layouts from your theme. Find the layout you would like to add and comment it out by add a “//” at the beginning of the line.

It should now look like this:

// genesis_unregister_layout( 'content-sidebar' );

On that same page, look for this:

//* Unregister sidebars

You will also want to comment out the line that unregisters the sidebar you want by changing this line:

unregister_sidebar( 'sidebar' );

To this:

// unregister_sidebar( 'sidebar' );

That will add a sidebar both to your widget area and your Appearance -> Customize menu.

Then you will need to edit your Stylesheet (style.css) so that it displays properly. You will need to add code similar to this:

.content-sidebar .site-container {
max-width: 1200px;
}
.content-sidebar .content-sidebar-wrap .content {
width: 800px;
float: left;
}
.content-sidebar .content-sidebar-wrap .sidebar {
width: 350px;
margin-left: 50px;
float: left;
}

More CSS styling will need to be done to make everything look right, especially at different screen sizes, but those changes above will get your sidebar up and displaying.