You need to take a bunch of cobblestone to the nether and build around your portal and make a small house around it. The cobblestone will stop the fireballs and make it more survivable. There are different resources there, including glowstone that can make your main house look pretty cool. Google and YouTube have a lot of examples of people who have created some fantastic structures and devices with the redstone. There are also some good tutorial videos if you are trying to figure out how to make redstone powered devices.