how to display search results in 2 columns

Hi,

I found out how to display post on my home page in 2 columns using the code from: https://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-themes/how-to-create-a-grid-display-of-post-thumbnails-in-wordpress-themes/ this site.

It works great for the home page but i would like the search result pages to display the same way. I nearly got it to work using the same code in the search.php file but it displays the message for “not found” even when it finds results.
Its got me tearing my hair out so some help would be greatly appreciated, i’m sure its something simple that im missing in my template file.

Thanks