I agree with ypg. It’s quite something to want to do so much yourself. We did the painting/flooring, kitchen assembly (Ikea), and the entire outdoor area ourselves. By Christmas last year, the house was at a point where we started preparing for the painting (We spent the entire Christmas sanding and filling). Just the preparation for wallpapering (walls and ceilings) took about a week. Despite 4 weeks of vacation and every evening and every weekend working on it, we still weren’t finished inside by the move-in date in mid-February. I still am not finished today. In a few rooms, baseboards are still missing, the laundry chute is not yet covered or usable, the attic (tongue-and-groove boards) is not completely finished, and here and there there are still construction lamps hanging, etc. etc.
At the end of March, I started with the outdoor area. Foundations, graveling, paving, building the carport, building the tool shed, landscaping the garden, wooden terrace, etc. Just properly managing all the heights everywhere was an effort, despite the flat plot. On one side, I had to completely secure it with L-shaped stones because the house is 50cm above the street and I wanted to keep the garden as level as possible. Just setting 30m of L-stones takes 2-3 weekends. It all takes a lot of time. And you don’t think about stuff like that beforehand. I am currently at the point where I’m finishing the tool shed in the carport. Then in the next few weeks I’ll still plant a few trees and a hedge. Then I’ll be roughly done outside. Then I can finish the remaining work inside the house and hopefully be finished by the end of the year.
This results in you taking rice out of everything, and if not physically, then with a lot of inner distancing from your partner and family, because after all, they’re all to blame that you feel bad.
I can confirm that. Especially when you’re standing outside alone with the shovel in the rain in front of a 10m³ pile of gravel, at that moment the partner is to blame. For the big pile, the bad weather, and that the shovel is actually 3cm too small for your height.
Counting on help from acquaintances can also go wrong quickly. I did everything alone, with partial help from my father and father-in-law. At the beginning, you get help from friends on one or the other Saturday. But it quickly becomes apparent that nobody offers help selflessly anymore.
If I’m hopefully halfway done by Christmas, then I will have invested every Friday afternoon, whole Saturdays, many Sundays, every holiday, many evenings, and over 40 vacation days alone for the house over the course of 1 year! And I built it turnkey without painting and flooring! I only did the painting, flooring, carport, and outdoor areas myself...
Regarding saving potential. You can never save that much with painting and flooring. I saved a few thousand euros here compared to the offer from my general contractor. But with the outdoor area including the carport, I saved a lot of money. About 15,000.