How to style Blog Output in Orchard CMS
===

I am a beginner using Orchard CMS (and web design in general).  I'm having trouble styling the output of blog pages on my site.  Many of my pages have custom HTML to create a background for text.  I would like to re-create this background on all blogs created through the Dashboard.

I've looked all through this site and Google for the past few weeks trying to find information, but I can't find anything substantial that isn't completely over my head.  

I removed some information for privacy reasons, but basically the code creates a container where I can place my content. Here is the (revised) code for the background:

    <table style="float: right" width="100%" border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">
    	<tbody>
    		<tr>
    			<td style="width: 21px;"><img src="src.gif" /></td>
    			<td style="background-image: url('src.gif'); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: white; font-size: 15px; font-weight: bold;">
    				<span style="float: left">[Redacted]</span>
    				<span style="float: right">
    						<script language="javascript">
    						var dayNames = new Array("Sunday","Monday","Tuesday","Wednesday",
    						"Thursday","Friday","Saturday");
    						var monthNames = new Array(
    						"January","February","March","April","May","June","July",
    						"August","September","October","November","December");
    						var now = new Date();
    						document.write(dayNames[now.getDay()] + ", " + 
    						monthNames[now.getMonth()] + " " + 
    						now.getDate() + ", " + now.getFullYear());
    					</script>
    				</span>
    			</td>
    			<td style="width: 21px;"><img src="src.gif" /></td>
    		</tr>
    		<tr>
    			<td style="background-image: url('src.gif');"></td>
    			<td style="background-color: #fcfefc;">
    <!-- Content goes here -->
    			
    <!-- End Content -->
    			</td>
    			<td style="background-image: url('src.gif');"></td>
    		</tr>
    		<tr>
    			<td><img src="src.gif" /></td>
    			<td style="src.gif');"></td>
    			<td><img src="src.gif" /></td>
    		</tr>
    	</tbody>
    </table>

Here are my questions:

 1. How do I style my blog(s) and every blog page so that all content falls within this container?
 2. How do I change the output of the 'excerpt'? The default length of the blog excerpt cuts off in strange places.  I want to be able to control this.
 3. Aside from orchardproject.net, can anyone recommend a good place to find Orchard documentation for beginners?  I feel the learning curve is steep for me, but I'm committed to learning Orchard.  Can you recommend a good place to start so that I can get a good base for this type of stuff?

I'm quite a beginner, but I'm trying to get better, so please bear with me.  I have almost no .Net or C# experience, and my CMS knowledge is basic (Wordpress).

Thanks for reading!