The white box in the example has a small image for the borders which repeats down the side of the center content which you could put in a narrow div or table cell.
http://www.logoworks.com/cmsimages/page_bg.gif
The white inside the borders can be a background-color for a div or table so that it doesn't need to be an image.
This was a recent example on this forum where the left and right borders are a small image in styles #BorderLeft and #BorderRight
http://www.wickham43.supanet.com/for...w070723-2.html
http://www.wickham43.supanet.com/for...eral070723.css
Code downloaded to my PC will be deleted in due course.
WIN7; IE9, Firefox, Opera, Chrome and Safari for Windows; screen resolution usually 1366*768.
Also IE6 on W98 with 800*600 and IE8 on Vista 1440*900.