It is hard not to be taken aback when Lester Capon tells you he had to hire a fork-lift truck to transport a guillotine and several screw presses when he moved home seven years ago. Thankfully, Lester is a bookbinder and restorer, not a medieval torturer, and he uses the guillotine to slice reams of paper, while the presses help in the process of sealing the intricately decorated leather and vellum covers that he creates.

Because of the weight of the machines, Lester needed to find a house where he could have a workshop on the ground floor, and he came across one when he and his partner, librarian Megan Fitzgerald, were house-hunting in Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire. The historic three-storey home is made up of three buildings, and although it appears to face the street, the front door is down a "snicket", or side alley, where the timbered construction of the early shop/house can clearly be seen.

"We believe that part of the building is Tudor, then there is a Georgian addition and façade, and a Victorian extension to the back," says Lester.

Given its piecemeal history, the house is remarkably cohesive and radiates out from a gracefully curving staircase that runs through the centre of the house. The rooms are furnished in such a way that there is a feeling of comfort and ease that comes with age and use.

The heart of the home is the comfortable, sunny sitting room on the first floor. Surrounding a cast-iron fireplace are cupboards, an original narrow one by the window and a larger, recently built one, in the same style on the other side. The smaller cupboard contains some of Megan's collection of ethnic hats, including one from Ethiopia. "It was made by one of the Coptic monks at the monastery where Lester spent three weeks working on the restoration of the 6th-century manuscript of the Garima gospels," explains Megan. "They wouldn't allow the manuscripts to be removed, so I had to go there," adds Lester, who has also travelled to work on a rare bible in Madrid, tomes in Chile and to teach in Finland.

The larger cupboard contains an assortment of trinkets from knitted chicken egg cosies to tin robots. "We call it the tat cupboard and there is neither rhyme nor reason to the things we have in there, but the glass-panelled doors mean that things are largely protected from dust," says Megan. At the other end of the room is a life-size carved and painted wooden horse from Rajasthan.

Megan's passion for textiles can be seen in the rich assortment of antique and embroidered cushions piled up on the sofas and armchair. The low-slung gilded furniture was given to them by a friend of a friend. Because the sitting room is on the first floor, it is above the bustle of the busy street; at night the pom-pom-edged blinds are pulled down to block out the street lights.

Opposite the sitting room is the main bedroom. The walls are in a muted shade of green: "We chose paints from Zoffany and Farrow & Ball to reflect the colours that might have been used in the house during its 18th-century phase," says Lester. The walls in the downstairs dining room are a golden ochre to set off the tiled floor, which was rescued from beneath a layer of concrete and bitumen. "It was a disgusting job that had to be done by hand," explains Megan. Where tiles were missing, Megan reproduced them in concrete and painted them. In front of the stove is a panel painted with an Indian tiger, beside it a figure of an Indian gentleman with turban. In a recess by the archway that leads to the breakfast room and kitchen there is a collection of old china and lustreware.

Opposite this series of rooms is Lester's workshop. It is a busy time for him as he prepares for an exhibition of his work at the Flow Gallery in Notting Hill. Later in the year, when the shortlisted books for the Man Booker prize are announced, various binders will be allocated a book to cover in a unique binding that will be presented to the authors on the night of the award (and which are displayed annually at the British Library).

Lester's guillotine and screw presses will clearly be kept busy until deep into the night.

Designer Bookbinders is at Flow Gallery, 1-5 Needham Street, London W11 (020-243 0782; www.flowgallery.co.uk), from Thursday to May 26. To commission a binding, see www.designerbookbinders.org.uk

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