Own contribution - what did you do and would you do it again?

We also had quite a lot done by others. Our own contribution was only painting (including roof overhangs), laying carpet, and installing network cables.
We also had the outdoor areas completed up to the lawn seeding stage shortly before the move-in, so that we could enter the house without much dirt. Further landscaping with flower beds is now in our hands.

When I think about how the professionals at our bathroom tinkered back and forth about the order of installation and tiling of the shower (tiles, drywall, and large shower tray), I wouldn’t want to have sealed and tiled it myself as an amateur. If a tile falls off, the shower tray is ruined and a thousand-euro loss. I'd rather have those with years of experience do it and be accountable for it.

I see it like Musketier.

We only did the painting work, carpet laying, and most of the outdoor landscaping ourselves. For the first two points, my husband took 3 weeks off. We wouldn’t have wanted or been able to do more. Apart from an electrician, we have no professionals in the family, and on our own, we wouldn’t have dared to tackle tiling or other work. If you have no idea, it’s better to leave it to the professionals. With two full-time jobs and two small children, there’s no time to do much more. You’re glad if you can still spend an hour with the kids in the evening. My husband was on the construction site every evening because there were this and that to organize or for all the little things that come up. And on that point, I have to agree with Skaddler: the little free time we had left we preferred to spend on joint activities and relaxation. We still had enough stress.

As a comparison: we know someone (also from construction) who wanted to build his entire house by himself. Meanwhile, he has at least contracted out some trades after spending all his vacation, weekends, and evenings at the construction site and hardly seeing his wife and children anymore. Meanwhile, he also says he wouldn’t do it that way again because now time with his family has become much more important to him, and physically (after now 2 years) he is exhausted.

Certainly, it is possible to do some things yourself, possibly under expert guidance. Anyone who does a lot of work on their house has my greatest respect. In the end, you should realistically assess what you can and want to do (professionally, physically, and timewise). It is indeed a success to be finished and have done a proper job. But whether you can actually save as much as you imagine is another question.

My husband was also on the construction site every evening because there was this and that to organize or for all the little things that come up.

In this sense, I would also count as own work: planning, planning, planning, organizing, obtaining quotes, checking, comparing, making decisions (you make an insane number of decisions in such a house, sometimes totally unimportant ones...), you could still call it project management... organizing financing, controlling payments, keeping an overview. And so on and so forth.

And that is indeed a lot of work! It takes up a lot of time and can also be annoying sometimes.

...if you have no idea, then the experts should rather take over...

I agree.

I have already described my own contributions here: