[SOLVED] Centering blog and adding border

Ive been looking around for a solution and haven't been able to find it, or even describe what I want, but I spent a lot of time looking, so here goes.

I have my blog in 2 columns - center and right. I want these two columns centered in the middle of the page and not left-aligned, with a background color. I want the top and bottom to "bleed" off the screen with no border showing, but I want a border on the right and left side of the center column.

Here is an example of what I mean - I want my center column to have bars similar to the yellow ones, with no color at the top or bottom. I tried adding a border to the layout container style, but it adds a border all around the column.

http://emile-hirsch.org/

I managed to get the centering, but think it may be more of a cheat than actually working with the code. I set the layout to either a fixed width or % and set a background color. The left and right border is the thing I can't get to work.

If anyone can offer any assistance I would appreciate it.

Thanks.