Border around forum, critique please

[Rafflesia]

I've been going back and forth on this for some time and have decided to bring it here.
One my site I have a border around forum, and I'm wondering if it would look better transparent or as a solid color.

Any other tips would be helpful as well.

And yes, I know my infocenter needs images. And I don't have a banner. And there are a few other like things that need to be redone.

Thanks in advance for your time,
--A. Rosewater

[Tumbleweed]

I usually really like semi-transparent borders if the background looks cool with the transparency but in your case, I think not because your site looks kind of choppy. I have no idea how you got your lower boards to expand to under your side tables like that but that is part of the reason I think it looks choppy. Also the dark on/off column adds to that so I think you need a solid color/border that, hopefully, will smooth things together/pull things together, for lack of a better way to describe the opposite of choppy. lol

[Rafflesia]

I wanted to have head and base images on my categories that made them have round corners, but I'm also afraid of them ending up being ungodly huge. They're already rather large, but if I don't have them collapsible they drive me crazy.

The background for the site was thrown together so I'd have something and it just kind of stuck. It was not originally diagonal or repeating, so my editing was a bit sloppy.

Now then, lighter or darker for the border?

[Tumbleweed]

I'm not positive because a person almost has to see it to know for sure but I'm thinking you need to go a tiny tiny bit lighter or darker than the background you have in your side tables. It just needs to be a touch more noticeable so it wraps everything up in a nice package. All I know is you can't go too light or that will be too much contrast against your background. You may have to try a few different shades.

BTW: I really like your background. I love that color and I think the diagnal lines look great. They are subtle enough to not bother me at all. It's always nice to see someone who put thought into their sites.

[Rafflesia]

Okay, I'll do that. Thank you so much for helping me.
And I'm glad you like how it looks, this is the first time I've done the graphics on my own so I wasn't sure if it looked okay.