I have created fiddle here: http://jsfiddle.net/ozzy/WEGMh/
How it should look is here:

Issue is the left and right hand divs arent showing. I have tried z-index , but it must be something painfully obvious.
My code may be crap too..
The idea is the container height will be flexible. Container width fixed.
Header fixed width and height
left div will be fixed width and flexible height.
right div can just adopt left divs parameters.
footer div fixed width and height.
If that makes sense.
The left and right divs are showing, it’s just that their height is zero.
They get their height from their content, and as there is nothing in them, the height becomes zero.
The default for a div is to fill up the available width, but not to fill up the available height.