Content-focused web design: sidebar alternatives? [closed]

Question

I am really liking the new trend of using a full-width scrollable blog design. Sidebar simply takes up far too much space, distracting from the main piece on the page- the content. Do you know of any techniques that would effectively "replace" the "sidebar", yet still providing a user a means to browse categories, popular posts, search box, etc?

Answer 1

Use your header. You can put all your category and archives into the menu items, widgetize the menu for your search field and social network profile links, and widgetize under the menu to show popular posts. Display them horizontaly instead of vertically. This is a lot of CSS and templating work, (not my forte yet), but that's probably the simplest idea of where else to stash the goods.