Hi Beth,
The reason your having problems with the background color is in part due to Auctiva using images for alot of the template background.
Here is the upper left corner, as example.
That does present a problem in doing a color replacement, as it would require editing of all the border images to replace the color. That reddish brown is color #c30004, which they set as the background color in the central area of the template.
Danno