... I'm kind of a fan of wood paneling in real life, so I figured why not just go for that look (to a certain degree) on the blog itself. My goal was unobtrusive, yet neat looking... with a slight shade of my favorite color mixed in 
... Did I succeed? I don't think it interferes too much with the text (if at all)... plus it looks a lot neater than the former 'dot matrix' scheme. Let me know what you think 
...