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[edit] Yet More Borders
Now that we've got the basic outline of our pillar (one side of it, at least) completed, we'll move quickly on.
We are going to add another border to the pillar, but slightly smaller than the outer one we just added. Instead of modeling the entire border again, we're going to just duplicate the outer one. This is an important concept in modeling, REUSE all your models as much as you can without making your scene boring. You will see how we reuse the models you've made over the course of this trail.
Make sure you're in EDIT mode, deselect all verts, hover your mouse over one of the verts of the border (I would pick a vert in the vertical/horizonal middle as the ones in the corners are close to the pillar background's, which means we might select the wrong thing). Press L and note that only 1/4 of the border is selected, this is because the meshes are unjoined. Select the other three border sections. Press W and select Remove Doubles. This will find any verts that occupy the same coordinates and merge them into one. It will also join edges that were connected to any of the original verts to the new vert.
You can see what we've just done by deselecting all verts then pressing L while hovering over the border. The entire border is now selected. Duplicate the border and scale by 0.7. Now, deselect the middle and lower verts by pressing B and dragging over the verts whilst holding the RMB 
. Translate the selected verts upwards by 0.3. Repeat with the lower verts.
Create another inner border using the same process on the border we just made. Use the same values for scaling and translating.
[edit] Pretty Patterns
We are now going to pretty up our pillar with some interesting patterns. Make sure you're still in EDIT mode and select all verts. Snap the 3D Cursor to the centre of these. (Shift S, look back if you don't remember how). Add a new cube and scale it by 0.05, remember to use the sub-grid by holding Ctrl SHIFT.
We're just going to make an abstract style shape by moving the verts around. Deselect all and select the verts on the right hand side of the new cube and extrude (Use Region) them by 0.2 to the right. Remember, the most important concept of extrusion is that it creates new geometry as opposed to simply manipulating existing geometry. Deselect all and select the left hand verts and extrude them 0.2 to the left. Now, select the verts you've just created on both the left and right hand side and rotate them by 25 either way.
Deselect all and select the top verts of the cube, extrude them upwards by 0.6, do the same with the lower verts (by extrude downards). Once you've done this, select all the verts of the funky shape (use L). Duplicate this shape and mirror it in the X axis by pressing M. Select both shapes, press W and select Remove Doubles.
[edit] More Patterns Of Prettiness
The next pattern we're going to create is slightly more complex, so here's a larger reference picture to see exactly what we're doing.
We'll start on the concentric circles in the middle. However, it's pretty obvious that the stuff we've already created is going to get in the way. We need some way of hiding it. To do this, select all verts and press H . Now, add a new circle, confirm the number of verts as 32. Scale by 0.1, then extrude and select the Edges option. Immediately press S to start scaling the extrusion, scale by 1.2. (Note we have now taken an object that has no faces and created visible geometry from it). Select all verts (hidden geometry is not selected when you press A) and duplicate, then immediately scale by 0.8. Now, scale again but constrained to the X axis by 0.6. Duplicate the squished circle and rotate it by 90.
[edit] Even More Patterns Of Prettiness
Deselect all verts and add a Plane, scale by 0.02. When you snap to grid, you don't have to hold the modifiers ({K|Control}} or Ctrl Shift) all the time, do the edit until you have it about right, then hold down the modifier for the final bit. Select the left hand verts of the plane and translate them by 0.02 to the right. Now deselect all verts and select the right hand side of the plane. Extrude these to the right by 0.1 and then scale the extruded verts by 0.5.
Extrude this edge by another 0.02 and deselect all verts. Select the verts at the top of the little square you've just created with the extrusion. Extrude these two verts upwards by 0.12 and then scale by 2. Extrude these two verts upwards again by 0.04 and deselect. Select the two verts on the left hand side of the square just created and extrude them to the left by 0.11, deselect the bottom of these two verts and translate the top one by 0.03 upwards.
We'll now do the bottom half of the middle bit. Select the two verts on the bottom of the square on to the right of the centre (see the screenshot if you need clarification). Extrude downards by 0.09. Translate to the right by 0.06 then scale by 2.5. Extrude downwards by 0.04. Finally, select the entire middle shape, duplicate it and mirror it in the X axis. Translate the new shape by 0.215 to the left. Select both the middle shapes and remove doubles.
We need to add some depth to this entire section, so select all the verts and go to SIDE view and extrude by 0.1 to the left. Go back into FRONT view, make sure all verts are selected and translate the prety shape upwards by 0.1. The last thing to do is duplicate it, mirror it in the Z axis and translate it downwards by 0.2
Note again how we reuse the shape as much as possible. This "complex" shape we shall use throughout the trail as a form of symbol all over the building we'll be making. Click here to proceed to Part III
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