I have a PreferenceCategory, xml file and I have defined all preferences in it, I call this from class that extends PreferenceActivity. I am unable
You can define a theme and then set this for your PreferenceActivity in the manifest. Your theme can then define a a background color or a windowBackground image should you prefer that.
Manifest:
Then add the theme to your styles.xml
In the above snippet there's both a background color and a background image defined to show how to do it.