Atahualpa: Three columns in main column - Can it be done and how?

Greenhorn's first post.....

After sampling scores of WP themes, Atahualpa, with its elaborate theme options panel is one of the best I've found.

The design of the site I am building requires the main/center column to be divided into three (or four) sub-columns of clickable links, very much like the layout of the Drudge Report website [www.drudgereport.com], except that I want to preserve the right hand sidebar for other functions. The main column(s) will be against the left side and take up between 2/3's to 3/4's of the page width. I'm not sure if what I'm doing would be considered one, or three(or four) separate columns.

Below all that the right hand side bar will continue to the bottom, but the main column will go from being multiple sub-columns to one single column.

This will be a template for other sub-pages.

Other considerations I have are changing the header image and size, and changing the foreground/background colors or replacing with images. I don't expect more than "yes you can/no you can't" answers because I don't want to complicate the thread, but overall I think it is relevant.

Hopefully once it's built, it will be fairly simple to make daily multiple updates.

I am open to using another theme if someone knows of one more suitable for what I'm doing, but I really like this one and hope I can make it work.

Please keep in mind that I am new at this.

Thanks in advance for any advice, Huckleberry