The article is a fun read. What I find most interesting for me is that the author needed the nudge to make the leap from "I want to buy X" to "I can build X".

The article is a fun read. What I find most interesting for me is that the author needed the nudge to make the leap from "I want to buy X" to "I can build X". Maybe it is just how I was brought up (and the friends I had around me), but myself and a few of my close friends all bought our houses around the same time. We've all done most of the non-annoying work ourselves (electrical, plumbing, tiling, leveling floors/the house, replacing joists, etc). Some of this we learned from our parents or older mentors, some from one another. We also trade labor/help. (Annoying work would be things like refinishing floors, insulation, roofing, etc). The group of friends is a mix of software people, a retired fire fighter, a geologist, etc. When we bought our houses, money wasn't there to pay someone to do the work and we liked doing such. As we've gotten older/more established, some things are worth paying not to do (a new gas line run, for instance). The fact remains, though, most of the things one needs to deal with in a typical day/month/year domestically, you can do yourself. Sometimes the convenience to pay someone makes sense, sometimes the risk of not being comfortable (or maybe not mechanically inclined) is too great, but there are things we pass on to others to do regularly that we can probably do ourselves. Sometimes those things can be quite rewarding/fulfilling. When I bought my house, my dad helped me with replacing all the rusted out galv with copper. He had to head out before things were done. A couple of fittings remained in tight spaces next to very old / dry wood. I did get an appraisal on finishing off some of these; having a couple of plumbers who played up the difficulty and then give a big estimate motivated me to get over my discomfort. I read up on the right way to do things and was extremely careful (and successful) in the endeavor.