[Inkscape-user] Color fill

Hello to the group. I'm new here and new to Inkscape. I've spent way too many hours on this, so I'm going to ask.....

I have created an image of a plaque. The border around it is essentially lines and curves connected together until they meet at the starting point, then another that is one grid square inside of the first.

I want to fill the area between the parallel lines (that form the border) with a color, then fill the inside of the plaque image with a different color. I can manage to get odd-ball areas to fill with color, but that's it.

What am I doing wrong?

Chuck