I wouldn't recommend making one large image and setting it as the background image. there should always be a portion of the image that can be a repeating image. by using the background properties of repeat-x or repeat-y you can set the repeating to be horizontal or vertical. Several links on tableless css layout designs:

http://inobscuro.com/tutorials/read/25/
http://css.maxdesign.com.au/floatutorial/
http://blog.tn38.net/archives/2005/0...ess_desig.html
http://www.contentwithstyle.co.uk/Ar...css-framework/