A family-of-seven are “utterly heartbroken” after the house they built using their life-savings was destroyed in a matter of hours.

After three-and-a-half years of manual labour, Sabrina and Peter Chadwick were just weeks away from moving into their dream home near Hythe when it all came crashing down after a huge fire.

The married couple had renovated the bungalow in Dymchurch Road all by themselves.

“It would have been our forever home, now it’s gone forever,” the 34-year-old said.

“The whole house is trashed - it’s just utterly heartbreaking.

“For years we put our hearts and souls into building that house. I remember my husband putting in the first bricks.

“Now he’s a broken man. I’ve never seen him this way.

“He’s nearly killed himself doing all that work and he says he can’t do it again.”

Although the Chadwicks, who previously lived in Deal and Sandwich, had not yet moved in, they had already begun to use the house.

Mrs Chadwick was on her way to get her daughter’s school uniform out of the tumble dryer on Wednesday morning when she saw smoke coming from the laundry room.

She said: “I will never forget that moment - the realisation of what was about to happen. But the only thing I could think of was getting my children to safety.

“I got them in the car, drove away from the house and left my 13-year-old to look after the little ones.

“But when I got back to the house the fire was in full force and I couldn’t get anywhere near it.

“I’ve never been so frightened and sad in my entire life. It was absolutely awful.”

Police closed part of Dymchurch Road for several hours as seven firefighters were sent to the bungalow, located between the junctions for Redoubt Way and Botolphs Bridge Road.

Both Mrs Chadwick and her husband are self-employed - Sabrina runs a beauty salon on Cheriton High Street and Peter works as an mechanic.

For the most part, the pair had relied on their wages to finance the £200,000 project, depriving themselves and their children of any luxuries since 2019.

“This house has been our wholes lives,” continued Mrs Chadwick.

“If we didn’t have a takeaway, or we couldn’t have a holiday, it’s all been because we’ve been saving for the house.

“My younger children have sacrificed everything - they’ve not had proper Christmas or friends over to play, because we’ve been living in a caravan while all the work was being done.

“They’ve asked us why is Mummy going to work at night and we’ve tried to teach them the value of working and hard saving for the thing you want.”

Having previously lived on a houseboat in Sandwich, Mr and Mrs Chadwick thought it would be safer to bring up their five children, aged between one and 13, on dry ground and provide them with a safe and secure home.

For the younger kids, the construction of the house is all they can remember.

Mrs Chadwick added: “It’s dominated their lives.

"I think it’s been most upsetting for my six-year-old. He’s been sat with his dad with the digger, and he really wants Daddy to fix it.

“They believe their dad can fix anything and he thinks, well why can't you just fix this?"

Still in shock from the disaster, Mrs and Mr Chadwick say they haven’t decided what their next move will be.

“We’re still just trying to pick ourselves up," she said.

“We’re not sleeping or eating. It feels like we haven’t woken up from the nightmare.

“We’re going to do anything we can, but we’re being mindful.

“We put our kids though this once because we thought we were doing the best for them, but is it fair to take that time out of our children’s lives again?”

Currently the focus is on getting what remains of the structure at least made water-tight.

As the couple had not yet been able to secure insurance for the house before disaster struck, they are facing the prospect of as much as £100,000 worth of damage and little financial recourse.

Mrs Chadwick has lunched a GoFundMe page in an effort to raise £20,000 needed to make the bare-bones repairs to the dilapidated home.

The campaign has raised more than £6,000 - a response Mrs Chadwick never expected.

“I am absolutely humbled and overwhelmed," she said.

“We are people who mostly keep to ourselves, and so to see the sheer kindness coming for everyone has been incredible."