If you're sick and tired of scrounging for the right nail, screw, nut, bolt or whatever, you'll love the slide-out drawer panel. Adding this panel is as easy as toenailing in a couple of backer boards and fastening a pair of 22-in. drawer slides ($15 per pair) to a piece of plywood. You can mount just about any store-bought plastic storage or homemade plywood storage bins right on the surface of the plywood. Mount them to any bench leg for even more hardware storage. Their under-bench location will keep the containers from filling with sawdust.

TOENAIL a block to the top of the shelf and to the bottom of the rear rail of the bench in line with the front leg. Screw in two level support blocks against the bottom shelf plywood and 3-1/2 in. from the bottom of the workbench. Screw the fixed part of the drawer slides even with the tops of these blocks and even with the front of the bench leg.

REST a 1/4-in. to 3/8-in. spacer directly under the drawer panel. Pull the drawer panel out about 3 in. and slide out the drawer slides until they're even with the edge of the panel. Screw the first screws of the upper and lower slides into the back of the panel. Pull out the panel until the next two screw holes are visible and fasten those. Pull out the panel the rest of the way and install the last set of screws.

Any wall cabinets (have any of your friends remodeled their kitchen lately?) will work for overhead storage, but we chose to buy 54-in. wide by 30-in. tall utility cabinets ($40 apiece) at our local home center. Inside, we wired an outlet to give the battery-powered tools their own sawdust-free home and recharging station. In another cabinet we cut a 5-in. hole in the side for a convenient rag dispenser.