My man shed got its first important feature this week; my Dad and I built a workbench from an old fire door.

We started by measuring up the door, and stripping off handles, hinges and bolts. After we cut the legs to size, we carefully slid the door into position, and propped it up.

After a little preliminary drilling, we screwed the door to the legs using some rather hefty screws. Then we screwed the legs to the exterior walls of the shed, to stop it from moving.

The desk was rock solid, but obviously needed some kind of cover to hide what was quite an ugly door.

Next we added some 2x1 pine as a trim around the edge of the shed, to prevent small things from getting lost down the sides.

I didn't have anything appropriate for the cover, so to B&Q it was. We decided hardboard was a good cheap cover that could easily be pulled off and replaced.

Of course while shopping for sheets of wood, we couldn't resist a quick trip to the electrical aisle. We grabbed an outdoor junction box, a set of outdoor sockets and to add a little geek to the mix, a socket set with some USB ports.

The workbench was looking great, and was ready to have power added. We ran a 15mm pipe from the house to the shed and ran Twin and Earth through it to connect it all up. The pipe will act a barrier to the elements and more importantly will prevent us from digging through it at a later date.

This is the finished product. I'm very happy with my new workbench and looking forward to getting stuck into some cool new projects.