Best way to modify footer widget parameters

Hey,

I spent much more time than I’d like to admit on this.

As a novice, I’ve been trying to determine how to display custom footer widget (sidebars) that are different than as defined in the parent functions.php for the footer sidebar. Specifically, I’d like to change the .col-lg-4 and .col-md-4 that’s defined in the sidebar array for ‘footer’ to values of 3 (i.e., to have 4 widgets across the footer each of 3 block sizes to equal the bootstrap 12 per se). Would also be nice to have option for a second footer row of the same width settings.

For better or worse I concluded from readings that perhaps the ‘best way’ to go would be to override the footer widget sidebar registration in the parent functions.php, and just redo the same function (but changing the ‘4’ to ‘3’, accordingly).

I’ve been following the WP codex and am successful in removing the parent footer stuff which is evident as reloading my page results in the footer’s absence. However, I am unable to then register a new footer sidebar. I tried various things and keep getting errors that state the parent is still trying to redeclare the function.

I’ll post any updated progress but for now I wanted to reach out and see if I could get some helpful insight.

Thx