how to change style but keep templates?

[shortbus1662]

I want to change the style on my site, but I want to keep the templates the way they are.

For instance, I have dual nav bars. I have adsense inserted. I have a side bar on all the forum pages.

I downloaded the current style and saved it.

Then I merged the new one into the old one.

That didn't work.

So I took the header info, the header include info, and the footer info and pasted them into that of the new style.

Of course, some of that was already there because I had initially uploaded the new style as a child of the current style.

At this point, I downloaded the new style again and again merged it with the current and now I have my header and stuff, but the templates are still wrong.

The adsense isn't there, the sidebar shows up underneath the forum, etc.

If I uploaded the current style and merged it into the new style then wouldn't the current style overwrite the parts of the old style that I don't want, kinda like the new one did the old, except the other way around?

If so, then I could download it again, and it would be changed, and then I could merge it AGAIN with the current style and then I would have the new style with the old templates.

I know this won't work, however I know nothing about any of this stuff, so I'm asking for help .

anyone?