Hi Carrotnapper,
The site looks as if it's progressing nicely. I particularly like the combinations of silver gradients, very nice!
I'm not sure whether you're attempting to make it centred in browser windows at varying resolutions, but in my monitor the layout appears in the top left corner of the screen (resolution set at: 1280 X 1024).
The design in itself is good, but I think you may want to look at the underlying code.
Most of the general layouts you see on the internet, particularly CSS sites are based around a very small core of techniques that can be adapted and transformed to suit any design.
My initial starting point before embarking on translating a design into a working page is looking at this site:
http://blog.html.it/layoutgala/, choosing a layout close to what I need and then messing around with the code, adding or subtracting elements to make it work for me... and I know that they will work in the majority of browsers, because other people are using them too... why reinvent the wheel? :)
Anyway, I hope that helps.
Gordon