Can You Build Your Own House?

Most men in America, who build country houses, are their own ‘Clerk of the Works,’ that is to say, they undertake to supply the materials, and employ the mechanics; they mostly plan the building, and they take all the general superintendence of the labor. And a sorry time they have of it! If it strengthens patriotism to fight battles for one’s country, our amateur builders ought to have a patriotic attachment to their country homes, for many of them have a sore conflict of mind and body from the time they commence building till they bid a joyful adieu to the house-painter.

It does not require much observation to discover the reason of all this difficulty and perplexity. To state it plainly, it is nothing more nor less than the ignorance of the proprietor himself of the whole art of building. Every man does not fancy that he can make a coat, or weave a tapestry, without instruction - yet every man is quite certain that he can not only build a house, but build a much better one, in many respects, than he has seen before, till he has tried! 

A.J. Downing, Hints to Persons About Building in the Country, 1847

It is the almost universal experience of those who build a house for the first time, especially those with limited means, that the cost largely exceeds the estimate, and this has led to the practice of adding twenty-five to fifty percent to the estimate as it is ordinarily made. This deficiency may be accounted for generally by the fact that there are so many little things that go to make up the completed house that are overlooked.

Samuel T. Maynard, Landscape Gardening, 1899