Question

dont want to use css frameworks like 960 cause that will lock the width.

and using dreamweaver will just add a lot of noise css.

would be good if there was a good css layout reference website with the common layouts and describing how to code that with css manipulating divs, so you dont have to figure it out yourself by experiments.

eg.

 header, content, right sidebar, footer
 header, left sidebar, content, right sidebar, footer
 header, content, rightsidebar, another rightsidebar, footer

and so on.

havent been able to find such a resource, would be great if someone could recommend such pages. thanks.

Answer 1

The moment you decide not to use a time-tested framework, you potentially create more problems than you solve. That being said, I would encourage one of the two 960 derivatives:

1. fluid
2. elastic