I think there's an inflection point somewhere between painting or wallpapering, and then doing floors and replacing the kitchen. The former can be done on your

I think there's an inflection point somewhere between painting or wallpapering, and then doing floors and replacing the kitchen. The former can be done on your own in a weekend with help from friends and family, or relatively cheap, certainly fixed price, by professionals. For the latter, you need people with a certain level of expertise (who may or may not be friends and family), you need to navigate suppliers, a staggering range of materials and for the kitchen, possibly a designer (or design it yourself, also not necessarily a simple task). And then there's finance: what can you afford, and how do you deal with cost overruns? The planning phase alone could easily take longer than completing the paint job of the entire place - and that's on top of actually moving, never mind having to live in the mess from building for weeks, best case (it's not exactly rare for people not to be able to afford having two homes, especially in a buying/mortgage situation - bridge loans can be pretty dear).