Table inside Table troubles

[YoYoMa]

Just built a web page for someone and am having trouble with 2 things:

1) The right-most column, the one that holds the menu does not fill the height of the outermost table.
    The site is located at http://www.designalternativesinc.com/about.htm
    All pages do this unless I tweak the height manually such as in the following code.

<td bgcolor="#04A4B4" width="167" height="1522" align="left" valign="top

2) In this same page the writeup to the right of the pic does not allign to the left of the cell dispite all attempts to make it so. I have the space between the pic and writeup set by a table cell with width at 10, but it pushes over to the right.

Any help would be GREATLY appreciated!

[soybean]

Well, welcome YoYoMa.  It's an honor to have such an accomplished musician among us.  Did you bring your cello?  

1) The right-most column, the one that holds the menu does not fill the height of the outermost table.
    The site is located at http://www.designalternativesinc.com/about.htm
    All pages do this unless I tweak the height manually such as in the following code.

<td bgcolor="#04A4B4" width="167" height="1522" align="left" valign="top

I can't speak for others but I don't understand the question.  Do you want the menu to be higher, lower, vertically centered on the left side of the page?  What?

2) In this same page the writeup to the right of the pic does not allign to the left of the cell dispite all attempts to make it so. I have the space between the pic and writeup set by a table cell with width at 10, but it pushes over to the right.

I don't follow you here, either.  I see ...

Carrie Fusella, President
Allied Member ASID, (American Society of Interior Designers)
CAPS, (Certified Aging in Place Specialist)
IDS, (Interior Design Society)
CSA, (Certified Senior Advisor)
Member of Women in Hospitality

... to the right of the pic and it IS left aligned.  So, what are you talking about?

[YoYoMa]

The containing Table has a cell that I wrote another table in it...the menu...
The table with the menu fails to automatically stretch to 100% height if I add aditional content to the left cell of the containing table.  The only way to make the bgcolor for the menu cel is to tweak it down to the pixel level each time the height of the left containing table changes.

Pt2

As you said the pic with writeup problem is as so:  I want a table with 3 cols

col1 width=184, col2 width=10, col3 width=the rest of the space to fill the containing cell.
What seems to happen is that the pic cel(184) is larger than 184, the 10px cell is then pushed over to the right and then even though the text is left alligned, the text is not close enough to the picture.

[soybean]

For the menu, I think you need table row tags, or <tr>, for each menu item, not just one <tr> tag for the whole menu table, which is what you have.  Thus, the coding for that table might be as follows:

    <table width="167" height="100%" border="0" bordercolor="orange" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" align="left" valign="top" bgColor="#04A4B4">

        <!-- FAR RIGHT CORNER -->
        <tr>
            <td width="167" height="76" align="left" valign="top">
            <img src=
            "home_files/far_right_top.gif" />
            </td>
        </tr>

        <!-- MAIN MENU -->
        <tr>
          
            <A HREF="home.htm"
            onMouseOver="document.pic1.src='menu_files/home_on.gif'"
            onMouseOut="document.pic1.src='menu_files/home_off.gif'">
            <IMG SRC="menu_files/home_off.gif" BORDER=0 NAME="pic1">
            [/url]</tr>
<tr>
            <A HREF="services.htm"
            onMouseOver="document.pic2.src='menu_files/services_on.gif'"
            onMouseOut="document.pic2.src='menu_files/services_off.gif'">
            <IMG SRC="menu_files/services_off.gif" BORDER=0 NAME="pic2">
            [/url]</tr>
<tr>
            <A HREF="about.htm"
            onMouseOver="document.pic3.src='menu_files/about_on.gif'"
            onMouseOut="document.pic3.src='menu_files/about_on.gif'">
            <IMG SRC="menu_files/about_on.gif" BORDER=0 NAME="pic3">
            [/url]</tr>
<tr>
            <A HREF="testimonials.htm"
            onMouseOver="document.pic4.src='menu_files/testimonials_on.gif'"
            onMouseOut="document.pic4.src='menu_files/testimonials_off.gif'">
            <IMG SRC="menu_files/testimonials_off.gif" BORDER=0 NAME="pic4">
            [/url]</tr>
<tr>
            <A HREF="portfolio.htm"
            onMouseOver="document.pic5.src='menu_files/portfolio_on.gif'"
            onMouseOut="document.pic5.src='menu_files/portfolio_off.gif'">
            <IMG SRC="menu_files/portfolio_off.gif" BORDER=0 NAME="pic5">
            [/url]</tr>
<tr>
            <A HREF="contact.htm"
            onMouseOver="document.pic6.src='menu_files/contact_on.gif'"
            onMouseOut="document.pic6.src='menu_files/contact_off.gif'">
            <IMG SRC="menu_files/contact_off.gif" BORDER=0 NAME="pic6">
            [/url]
        </tr>

        <!-- Row 3 -->
        <tr>
            <td bgcolor="#04A4B4" width="167" height="1522" align="left" valign="top">
            </td>
        </tr>
        </table>

My HTML skills are rusty.  If I have a chance, I'll look at the rest of your layout and see whether I can offer any ideas on the other points you raised.