Physical and mental health consequences
– Puts a strain on a relationship. Don’t start if you fear this risk.

– No “beach vacations”, infrequent weekend getaways during this time.
– Had to deal with a few (some are pretty nasty, not due to an accident, but rather a physical strain) injuries causing “not in condition” mode.

Took way longer than expected (expected <3 years)

– Trusted contractor (a friend) who was to help e2e under 2 years got a “lifetime opportunity” (well-paid full-time estate management job at a Big Boss ✋ property) => we had to look for another trusted contractor to proceed working with.

✋ It’s funny, SB snatched a worker from us :).

✋ Conventional contractors fretted this build. We ended up working with expert level contractor retirees who took jobs for fun and at a reasonable rate, wholeheartedly endorsed our build, offered a tone of advice, unlimited consultations and improvements for no charge. Contrary to the rapid plug-and-pay style of modern commercial careless developers. 

– Pandemic has significantly slowed down the supply chain. We were lucky, we didn’t need materials by the time when this happened. However, it took one year to get appliances delivered after purchasing.

– There are other factors which I can’t talk about that made it be 10x more difficult and contributed to  significant delays and quality compromises.

Civil lawsuit

We had to break a contract with a bad contractor. Overall it was unpleasant / stressful, at the same time, a useful experience to go over this.

Mistakes consequences

Due to having limited experience, mistakes were inevitable. We had to compensate for this and it took time, effort and money. E.g. we didn’t have a lot of control over how windows and framing were installed. It ended up not being perfect.