So while all the total chaos was going on it was mine and Richards birthdays, pretty hard to keep presents hidden when everything was in storage (Rich presents nearly ended up in the storage unit but I remembered at the last minuet and retrieved them!)

As ever my boy surpassed himself on the gift front...

I got a beautiful Willcox & Gibbs sewing machine, we've worked out it was made around the 1870s (Rich mentioned here that its 100 years older than his Cortina and in better condition), I also got something I have been moaning endlessly about not having...

... proper fabric scissors! These are just fab, ok I realise they are just scissors and for anyone who doesn't sew or need to cut fabric I'm sure thats how they appear. But for the creatives out there these are simple THE BEST SCISSORS IN THE WORLD!!! I'm not kidding, they are Sheffield steel with enamel handles and cut like a hot knife through butter, they are a total pleasure to use and can be found at the wonderful Merchant & Mills (I want everything on their website!)

He also got me another case of old butterflies (anyone who knows me know I can't resist taxidermy butterflies...yes I'm odd like that).

And even more butterflies off Rich's Mum, Dad and our niece (who thought I was taking too long to unwrapped them and told me what there where, I was like that as a kid too)

One of the books from my ever lengthening books list (cheers Mum!)

I was a very lucky girl this year, books, butterflies and sewing stuff, I couldn't have picked anything better!

I'd love to show you what Rich got but it was mostly parts for the Cortina (which if I'm honest all look pretty similar to me) and have now mostly been fitted, but he's a happy boy so that the main thing!

And heres what out little studio now looks like...

The floor now looks stunning, amazing considering how crappy the boards where originally...shame you cant actually see much of it now all the furnitures back in! I think the little oak filing cabinet (rescued from the skip at work) looks brilliant next to the floor, as you can tell I'm chuffed to bits with it all.

As Rich was wheeling power tools all over the place I got him to redesign my desk a bit by putting my up a shelf for my Mac to go on, freeing up my drawing board...

I'm sort of crammed into a corner as this isn't the biggest room and there are two of us work side by side in it but we try to make the best use of space until we can get the pennies together to build the workshop/studio in the garden. Rich is happy at his vintage 1940 desk (which weighs a bloody ton, good job we've strengthened the floor joists)

Rich loves this desk, its the only bit of furniture that was nonnegotiable whenever we've moved house, if theres nowhere for the desk we don't move there, everything else can be changed but not this desk!

In honer of our sparkly new office I splashed out on a new (to us) curtain I found in a vintage shop up in Shropshire...

I noticed this curtain as soon as I went in the shop, the fabric is by Angie Lewin, one of my most favourite designers! I nearly passed out when I saw it and for a bargain price too. I have desperately wanted on of her prints for the studio for ages but never seem to have the money, so this was perfect a curtain and print all in one! As this had got me  into a spending mood I also treaded myself to some Annie Sloan paint so I can finally get our little corner dresser painted and pretty (FYI this paint apparently needs no undercoat OR sanding, ideal paint for impatient girlys then, I shall report my progess with it. Rich is sceptical to say the least, I think he feels that no sanding and priming is cheating!)

Now all I need it to do is stop raining for a few days so I can get the dresser outside!

I finally feel like some progress has been made this year...Bathroom is next on the list...god help us!

We are still here, just! Oh my god, please someone remind me NEVER to have any part of rewiring a house EVER again! It was so awful that I had to run away for a week to Turkey with my Mum while poor, long suffering Rich was left to cope (that man has accrued so many Brownie Points now theres pretty much nothing he can ever do wrong!).

So this post is going to be some grizzly pics of our disembowelled house, sorry boring I know but as I did with the fireplace last year I want to be able to look back and remind myself of how it looked (also incase I ever have a brain haemorrhage and decide to rewire another house this will hopefully bring me to my senses).
As you can imagine it was all rather frantic for several weeks so theres not many photos , but heres what was our office after we cleared everything out to the storage unit (and holy hell, do we have a LOT of stuff! It comes of both being illustrators and working from home I guess?!)  Rich and his Dad started ripping the floor up...

We had also decided to sister up the rather bowed old joist while we had the floorboards up to make the whole of the first floor more sound (I would like to point out his was Rich's idea, personally I was rather fond of our trampoline like floor!).

Very solid! It can how happily take the weight of all our art equipment (Richards desk alone weighs a ton!).

So once the wiring had all been done and the floor was back down we had to empty the storage unit...

I wont go into the details, sufficed to say this was both the most back breaking, grubbiest and boring job I have ever been a part of. The shear dullness of moving our stuff from one side of the city to the other after weeks of living in rubble, dust and live wires was nearly the final straw for Rich. We where both so knackered by the end we didn't know what to do with ourselves.

So then we decide to sand the floorboards in the office....idiots!

This involved another mind numbing job of scouring the floor for old nails and tacks (why the hell is DIY so bloody boring!) Notice the fixed smile above, my poor soft girly hands where covered in blisters after this.

Then Rich got down to the very manly business of sanding the floor, I desperately tried to keep on top of the dust (which was totally pointless).

About a minuet after I took this pic the bag of sawdust exploded covering both of us and the entire upstairs in orange, I'm still finding it in my hair!Rather surprisingly the boards came up beautifully and look amazing, I will do another post in the next day or two of the finished thing! For now I must continue the fight against the endless dust!