Thanks. The main driver for doing the stuff myself is cost. We had the basement finishers quote things just to see if it was worth us doing or just have them do it.
Barn doors: Quote $2400, Doing myself $400 ( plus added bonus of scrap for that big end table)
Shelves: Quote $900 since we already had them, Doing myself $135 in trim
Kitchen countertop, cabinets, sink, fridge: Quote $9600, Doing myself, $1300. Not pictured yet because we’re currently working on that. Painted the cabinets yesterday, should have it done in the next week or so.
So we spent ~$1900 to do what would have cost ~$13,000. The work takes patience but isn’t difficult.
We’ve also always done this. All of our wooden furniture is goodwill shit we just sand down and repaint. So we have $30 dressers instead of $500, $5 end tables, etc. It also feels nice to say “We did this” instead of “We bought this”. Nice to have our own personal touches to shit instead of store bought that hundreds of other people have.