I've also done this kind of thing in my spare time. It's definitely rewarding in many ways: you get to enjoy the fruit of your labour in your lived environment,

I've also done this kind of thing in my spare time. It's definitely rewarding in many ways: you get to enjoy the fruit of your labour in your lived environment, you know you did a more detailed job than someone you paid would have done, you make all the decisions about the work where a contractor may have done it differently, you save some money on the labour costs of the work. One thing I've learned through doing this though is that I would have a very hard time doing this to make a living. Unless you are somehow in a position to do custom bespoke works for high payers, where you keep a lot of control over the process and don't have to operate on tight margins, I just don't see how it could be any more rewarding than office work. On top of this it will take a physical toll on your body and pay less. Despite that, I do hope to make this transition myself but it will be a long time till I will be in a position to make it work. I think it can make sense for someone if they are able to make niche items, like by becoming a luthier say, and can afford to do it for poverty wages because they are basically semi-retired. I wish more people had the freedom to do this kind of work, and that society placed more value on well-crafted things over mass-produced rubbish.