Question

Specifically, I want to be able to modify the layout for an individual blog page as well as the general blogs page.

Answer 1

Shamoon, You have a theme for your PyroCMS. As you know, each module has its own views. The layout, in the other hand, is the the one that you see in the browser.
Your answer is very simple, for Blog module you can build your own layout and your own views. Do that in your theme folders. for example this is the structure of files inside your (active) theme folder.

addons/shared_addons/themes/shamoon_theme

css
img
views
  +layouts
     default.html
     blog.html
  +modules
     +blog
        view.html
        posts.html
        archive.html
  +partials
theme.php
screenshopt.png

then you just edit the blog.html as your blog layout, and view,posts and archive.html for you views.

as a matter of fact there is a theme in you PyroCMS named “base” take a look at that theme to see what I said in action.

Hope that helps.