Info on creating site backgrounds
 

I'd like to put a background on a 980 px site.

It would be white in the middle and a graphic on either site of the 980 px main part of the site.

It would start after the (below) header.

Is there a post somewhere that explains how to do this? I've looked but could not find one.

Help appreciated.

Nick

The background of a the site is generally a single image that, if you want to keep the size down for load times, is repeated vertically or horizontally. For what you want that would typically mean a picture as in the following links.
Here is the site.
Here is the background image. If look at the dimensions of this image they are 1200px by 7px and the image repeats vertically.

You would have a narrower image in your case and you would have to position it with CSS as explained here.

That is one methodology. There are ways to use two images or a single image can be used but you have to be careful of how large the file size is otherwise you can run into long page load times as mentioned previously.

good stuff, I need to know where to put this in the back end.

go read the info at ato->Body, Text & Links

Look in ATO>Body, Text, & Links. That will be a start.