I am getting used to check a lot of web sites now, and i have pretty accurate eyes in case of judging sites that uses good design techniques and layout! There are just a few sites that are good looking, i hope you like the designs of PHPLD Your Site for instance! And there is also the great 80ies looking of V7n network sites that you can check.

WindLords.com

The site uses 3 main colors which are Blue Ocean by Night, Green Forest, and Yellow Gold. It does look really good, just take a look at WindLords.com. SEO Speaking the site uses Tables which is the best, it displays content first before assets, it loads fast, the layout in general is awesome.

I give it 9.5/10. The site is about Wind Surfing, glad there are some creative wind surfers out there!

RipCurl.com

The site of RipCurl.com is also very cool and good looking, the background fits totally the main layout, it’s another kind of box looking site (i love that style, it’s better and easier for readers). The main colors are Red Black and Grey. The site also uses Tables which are good SEO techniques, it helps crawling a site in a logical kind of way for googlebot. I would say that the buttons are not really suitable, they could have chosen something instead of text!

I give it 9/10. Another site about Surfing, those surfer dudes are really creative!

Enjoy,

While checking links i stumbled upon THAT: jazcenterprises.
Seems like the designer stretched some 10×10 gif pictures to make the background.