Issues creating a box using CSS

You can do this pretty cleanly with this css:

.box {
        width: 100px;
        border: solid #884400;
        border-width: 8px 3px 8px 3px;
        background-color: #ccaa77;
}

.box ul {
        margin: 0px;
        padding: 0px;
        padding-top: 50px; /* presuming the non-list header space at the top of
                              your box is desirable */
}

.box ul li {
        margin: 0px 2px 2px 2px; /* reduce to 1px if you find the separation
                                    sufficiently visible */
        background-color: #ffffff;
        list-style-type: none;
        padding-left: 2px;
}

and this html:

<div class="box">
  <ul>
    <li>Lorem</li>
    <li>Ipsum</li>
   </ul>
</div>

DEMO

So if you have source:

<div class="panel">
  <div>Some other stuff</div>
  <ul>
    <li>Item 1</li>
    <li>Item 2</li>
  </ul>
</div>

You can use CSS:

div.panel { background-color: #A74; border: solid 0.5em #520; width: 10em; 
            border-width: 0.75em 0.25em 0.75em 0.25em; }
div.panel div { padding: 2px; height: 4em; }
div.panel ul li { display: block; background-color: white; 
                      margin: 2px; padding: 1px 4px 1px 4px; }
div.panel ul { margin: 0; padding-left: 0; }

To get the CSS to work properly (particularly on Internet Explorer), make sure you have an appropriate DOCTYPE definition in your document. See w3c recommended doctypes for a list.