1. You already knew how to design. In fact you are a very talented and well known designer. If you didn't have design skills, chances are a huge huge amount lower that anything you put out will make the rounds - design is super important, and you of all people know that. And that's something you need to learn as well, so tack that on top of the time it takes to learn how to code.
2. Learning how to code != making websites. In fact, they are very different. To make a website, not only do you need to either have a designer on hand or be good at design as mentioned above, but you also need to have a very good understanding of how the web works. That means filesystem structure, http, ftp, domain names, web hosting, then add html and css to the javascript you've been working on. THEN if you want your site to be anything more than static, throw in back end code, databases, web frameworks, etc. on top of that.
This is a MASSIVE stack of things to learn, and I don't know a single person who knows all of this and doesn't work full time doing this stuff. "Learning to code" seems like a cute thing you can make a resolution to work on as a hobby, and maybe it is. You might be able to pick up the bare basics of programming in your free time, if you work hard. But making something significant like you claim here is a completely different deal.
3. You never dispute or even address the main point behind Atwood's article - that while programming is great to learn, the trend that 'everyone should learn to program' as a base skill along with reading, writing, and math is ridiculous. It's nowhere near as important as these other skills, and he makes a number of other valid points as well which I'm sure you don't disagree with. You argument was simply that programming is cool, so you should learn it. Sure, I agree, and I would have said the same if I only read the title of Atwood's article. But I feel like the way you contested it was uninformed and completely missed the point.