Welcome to Pi, Ben!You will like the Towers. I have a set that I run using my little 0.9W 12B4 amp. Plenty loud in a small room. On the other hand I can run my 50W NAD BEE amp into them and shake stuff off the walls long before I notice any clipping or distortion.
As far as veneer goes, you can get paper-backed veneer in 4x8 sheets here.