“Both of us love the coast,” says Jason, picking up the story. “So we started to search for a house near the sea. Neither of us had renovated a property before but we decided that we quite fancied a ‘project’ property to really make our own.” With Jason working in the property world, it would be natural to assume that finding such a house would be easy. In fact, it was almost a year before they heard of a nineteenth-century fishing cottage that was in desperate need of being restored. “I came to see it on my own because Sophie was working in London,” says Jason. “The house had been modernised in the sixties when all the original windows had been removed along with the fireplaces. There was also a very unattractive flat-roofed extension but I knew immediately that this was a house we’d both love to live in.” Sophie nods in enthusiastic agreement. “Jason rang me from the house and I just said ‘go for it’. We had to put in a sealed bid immediately – and then sit biting our nails whilst we waited for the decision.”

Understandably, it was a great relief when just over three years ago, the couple discovered that the cottage was theirs. “After such a heavy sixies makeover,” Jason reveals, “there was really very little left of the original house that could be described as a ‘feature’. So we thought we would make the most of the fabulous view and the picture windows and open up the rest of the house as well.” Sophie and Jason had strong ideas of what they wanted to do with the house and called in the help of a friend, who was a structural engineer, to confirm that their desires were workable. They then had plans drawn up and within two months of owning the house, put in for planning permission – only to have it turned down on a technicality. “I can’t tell you how disappointing it was,” Sophie states. “After lots of to-ing and fro-ing, it wasn’t until the following spring that the permission was granted, meaning that we lost the slot we had with our builders.”

It was some fifteen months after buying the house that work finally started. “But that may have been a good thing,” says Jason, stoically. “The house was in quite a state so we couldn’t live here but we visited it regularly. And those visits gave us a lot of time to think and see the house in the different seasons. We realised that we’d made the house too open plan with not enough living space. So we tweaked some of the plans for the better.” Jason and Sophie managed the project themselves but used a local builder, Paul Osborne. “Paul made all the difference to the success of the renovation,” Jason confirms. “He knew the area well and was entirely sympathetic with what would be right for the house and its surroundings. Plus he’d been a local mayor and knew exactly what was acceptable for conservation and building consent.” Sophie agrees: “We had a lot of confidence in him and could trust him to get on with things, once we’d talked each stage through.”

Work started in the September and by Christmas the house was watertight with the windows going in two days before Christmas. “We wanted to keep everything as environmentally sound as possible, recycling wood and any other materials we could. When you are living next to the sea, windows are even more of an investment than under normal circumstances,” Jason points out. “Our builder recommended EnviroNomix, a company in Rye that only deals in environmentally-sound building products. The windows were Danish-made by a company called Vrogum and they not only look perfect on the house but also withstand the worst of the winter weather as well as letting us make the most of the summer.”

Having missed their original slot with the builder meant that Sophie and Jason had to accept that the rest of the work would then have to fit in with the other projects that Paul Osborne was committed to. But that allowed the couple to source their fixtures and fittings with time and care. “There’s almost too much choice when it comes to baths and taps,” Sophie laughs. “But thanks to the internet, you can soon whittle your selection down. Although I do remember choosing some Turkish travertine for the bathroom and wet room and then finding out that they hadn’t got enough at the suppliers. You just have to accept that when you are buying a natural product though – and then start selecting another colour!”

Originally, the kitchen was on the ground floor, but having rebuilt the extension, the natural location for the new kitchen was the first floor with views out to the sea on one side and across the garden on the other. Sophie and Jason designed the kitchen themselves and had the units made by Paul Osborne. “We had to plan the entire room around Jason’s fridge,” Sophie grins. Fridge is an understatement; it is, in fact, a General Electric vintage refrigeration unit of some stature, dating back to the sixties. “Ah yes,” says Jason of it fondly. “I had a client who was moving out of a house after some years. He’d put different colours of stickers on everything and when I asked him what they meant, he explained that everything with a red sticker was going off for house clearance. The fridge had a red sticker – I couldn’t believe he was getting rid of it. I used to have a bubble car and it was the same colour as the fridge, maybe even the same age. So even though I had nowhere to put it, I made an offer for the fridge and then had to arrange for a piano remover to take it away for me!” In fact the fridge was then moved from storage space to storage space for years before finally finding a loving home in Sophie and Jason’s new home.

The kitchen units were painted Farrow & Ball’s Old White in honour of the fridge but Jason confesses that when the fridge finally came out of storage, it was bluer than he originally remembered. “The biggest relief, though, was that it actually works!” In keeping with recycling as much as possible, the kitchen worktops were offcuts of floorboards surplus to Jason’s office re-fit. The sink was found in Sophie’s father’s garage – along with the quite stunning front door. The floorboards in the kitchen and its adjacent living room were restored where possible and any replacements sourced from Symond’s Salvage, pieced together like a jigsaw to look as if they have always been there.

A second floor was added above the kitchen when the original extension was rebuilt and extended further. It now houses a further sitting area, complete with Juliet balcony, offering spectacular views out to sea. “It’s a great place to sit and watch the sun going down on a gorgeous summer evening,” says Jason. “But it’s also a cosy spot on a winter’s afternoon.”

Sophie and Jason spent many hours contemplating the paint charts before deciding that, to make the most of the open space and the coastal light, they would paint the room in Farrow & Ball’s Wimborne White. Finally, with the house a blank canvas, the couple were able to actually move in last January – almost three years from start to finish. “We’ve loved being here at last,” Sophie sighs. Jason agrees. “Over the years, I’ve been squirreling away all sorts of things: door handles, shutters, bits of furniture. Between us, we had all the ingredients but no house to put them in. Now we have!”

In the next few months, Sophie is opening a treatment room on the ground floor. “I visit people in their homes throughout London and the South East offering massage therapy to adults and babies, including pregnancy massage,” Sophie explains. “But it is great to be able to have a base here to offer treatments as well.” With the treatment room open, Sophie and Jason’s final project will be the garden – the former location of a heap of junk and rubbish that had been acquired by various tenants over the years. “It’s not a huge space but it still took two men four days to clear,” Jason laughs. “Now we are able to see where the lawn will go and have a little terrace as well as a small courtyard. I can’t wait to get started on it.”

After three years of acquiring so much knowledge of project management and local sources of building materials and salvage, will Sophie and Jason be able to settle with a more relaxed lifestyle? Sophie gives a wry smile. “Well, I will,” she laughs. “But I know that Jason is just itching for another project.” Jason grins. “Oh we’re definitely staying here,” he states. “But yes – another project would be good!”