Mike and Jane Cuva are nothing if not resourceful. For two decades the couple bought fixer-upper properties, renovated them and sold them on for a profit. In 2015 they bought a two-bedroom house on two acres near Guildford, Surrey, for £937,000. The Cuvas wanted to turn the cottage into their dream family home (they have two children, Alana and Nico, now aged 20 and 16).
The Cuvas transformed a traditional cottage into a stylish modernist pad
RACHEL ADAMS FOR THE TIMES
The Cuvas paid for the cottage with cash and didn’t have money left over for a large project, so they rebuilt and extended it over four years and eventually took out a mortgage. To save money, they signed up with a pet-sitting agency, at one point staying in 11 houses over the course of six months while their builders got
