Help with Background Color Change

[stwoods]

Hi All, 

Learning Indesign but ran into a problem. I created a grid and placed some images in them. All is good.

Then I tried to change the background color by doing the following:

Create a New Layer

Drawing a rectangle over the selection

Go to Windows -->Color--> Colors (I made sure "paper" was not selected as I hear that's only for view)

Select my desired color for the background

Go back to layers and change the order of the layers

The background color does not show. Am I missing a step or is there another method?

Thanks in advance!