Tables should not be used for page layout. Not if you want to design websites that meet current standards.
It'll probably take you several evenings to figure out CSS layout. When you get the hang of it you'll get a sense of achievement and, more than that, a valuable and very flexible skill.
If you're a newbie you need to do some reading. I learnt by reading Jeffrey Zeldman's book "Designing With Web Standards" (link's below).
There's a website called Blue Robot that can help you learn how to create simple CSS two-or-three column layouts.
Not sure what you mean about DIV tags not working well with tables. DIV tags are commonly used to divide your page into sections (e.g. header, main content, menu, columns, footer). TABLE tags are only supposed to be used for data that needs to be shown in rows and columns (like a catalogue, calendar, pricelist etc).
If you have a URL I could look at I could help with the coding.