I was curious to know if it was possible to format a background image for the Chunk theme that ended up resembling stationary "frames" on the left and right margins of the header/menu/page space.
Do you mean you want the ripped page borders from the right and left on the current header image to continue all the way down the page?
http://summerwriters.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/headersoft11.jpg
That's doable. You'll need to create the background image yourself though. What you'll want to do is take a copy of the background image you have now and erase all of the icons in it. It's up to you whether to keep the shading in the middle, but if you keep it, make sure the gradient is horizontal and not radial or the background image will look strange repeated. The top and bottom lines for the page will need to be made to match up too.
I hope you do it! I think it will look really cool! Post back if you can get an image created.
Here is a rough example showing the kind of thing you could do using the current header image from your http://summerwriters.wordpress.com/ site:
#container {
background: url(http://summerwriters.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/headersoft11.jpg) repeat-y;
}
#header-image,
#site-title,
#site-description {
margin-left: -21px
}
#footer {
padding-bottom: 3em;
}
#menu, #widgets, #footer {
border: none;
}