My mother’s father was the first of my grandparents to pass away. He died back in the 80s after many years of alzheimer’s, which started at an early age. I remember him as a quiet and simple man, who was always tinkering in the garage.

I inherited a sturdy clothes horse that he made that I’ve had in constant use since then (and who knows how long it was being used before then), his home-made incredibly heavy wooden tool box, some of his tools, and his workbench – from which the vice had already been taken.

The workbench is like I remember Pa: well-worn, simply made and big.

We’d kept it in the old garage as storage, but it doesn’t really fit in the new one. Paul was considering keeping it in the studio as a bit of rustic furniture – more a curiosity piece than practical storage – but then I had a brainwave. I’ve been wanting garden benches for years and my design involved Paul welding together metal bases and using the leftover decking wood scraps for the tops. But Paul hadn’t got around to making them, what with other home projects becoming higher priority.

The workbench has a metal base and a wood top. Why not convert it? So I put my idea to Paul, we worked out how we were going to do it, and went shopping…