OK, finally got:

• A workbench in my garage
• A soldering iron with a small point and adjustable temperature
• A basic soldering station
• A decent solder
• Flux
• Tweezers
• A multimeter
• All components that I needed

Time to solder the PCBs that arrived a while ago!

<5 minutes later>

Mmmm, the solder looks pretty good, but somehow the surface mounted resistor seems too small, there's no way I can make contact like this

<5 minutes of Googling later>

Wait, are you telling me that there are different sizes of surface mounted components, and I needed to set the correct size in the schematics? Uh, I guess in hindsight it makes sense.

Turns out that I designed my circuit for resistors twice as big... I'll see if there's any way to salvage this.

I did use surface mounted resistors in the design instead of throughole as a learning experience so I guess that served it's purpose.

Another day, another maker noob mistake, I guess... Living and learning.