I'll admit, my html and CSS is novice, at best but I've been charged with creating a custom skin based on some art work given to me.  I've been following the excellent blog from Ralph Williams and that has helped me come a long way in a few weeks.  I'm getting hung up on the menu.  I need to do a menu left, menu right, and menu background image, like the minimal extropy has and I've tried to combine that with the menu wrap that Ralph uses, but it's just not coming out at all.

This is from the ASCX file:

<div id="topWrap" class="home-page clearfix">
    <div id="contentWrap" class="clearfix">
        <div id="logoWrap"><dnn:LOGO runat="server" id="dnnLOGO" /></div>
        <div id="menuWrap">
   <div class="menu_left">
    <div class="menu_right">
     <div class="menu_bg">
      <div class="menu_style">
       <dnn:NAV runat="server" id="dnnNav" IndicateChildren="false" ProviderName="DNNMenuNavigationProvider"><CustomAttributes><dnn:CustomAttribute Name="RenderMode" Value="UnorderedList" /></CustomAttributes></dnn:NAV>
      </div>
     </div>
    </div>
   </div>
  </div>

And here is the code for the CSS:

#menuWrap { /* inherits height from DNNNav styles */
   float:right; margin:100px 300px 24px 0; /* positions menu */
   background:;
   position:relative; z-index:10; /* used to place menu over header image in IE */ 
  }
   .menu_bg{padding:0 0 0 6px;  margin: 0 21px 0 9px; background:url(images/index-menu.png) top left;}
   .menu_left{padding:0; margin:0; background:url(images/index-menu-left.png) repeat-y  top left;}
   .menu_right{margin:0; background:url(images/index-menu-right.png) repeat-y top right; }

I'm still struggling a little with the concept of positioning in CSS, so perhaps I just don't have my positioning right, but nothing is showing up as a menu background.  Unfortunately I don't have a link to my site because it's just a local instance on my machine.