I know there's adverse selection going on, but everything I have seen from the TV programme Grand Designs tells me that this is a good way to great unhappiness and destroying your marriage.

> decided to save up $500K

For most people this is called "retirement"; by the time you've hit that total, you're over 60 and needed somewhere to live in the meantime.

500K is a lot of money. More than 99 percent of people make in a lifetime.

I would say, the goal should be to accomplish this without much money. Any money spent will add to the co2 footprint. (you can buy a lot of gas/concrete/coffee/meat/plastic/clean water... for that kind of money.)

Personally doing something like this, except not from scratch, but a major renovation.

I'm not using concrete at all, I am reusing foundations, and mostly sustainable domestic wood and other recycled materials. I've been taught from a fairly young age about carpentry so I'm not ultra-green and I do use some local tradesmen, which I'm learning a lot from. I plan to do some more of my own projects so it's been great to work with them and gain more insights into how they work.

I've learned an incredible amount, there is something ultra inspiring and rewarding for me when working with physical material. I find it sort of unlocks parts of my brain I forgot I had. Working in the third dimension I guess?

Also, remember all that math you learned in school but hardly use? Well you'll likely be revisiting at least some of it! Which feels awesome.

Regarding the time management, project management etc, it's true, you have to learn all this, but more importantly you start to have to learn to compromise and really get good at communicating with people. A mistake in the physical world can get costly very fast.

Very interesting. Do you have a website with ideas or pictures maybe?

I don’t because I’m paranoid from a privacy standpoint :(

You could also hit the gym at lunch or after work lol. Though I'm also a fan of the ending of "Candide"; I think it's lovely to "cultivate your garden" (a gross attempt to summarize the moral of that work), but you can find ways to do that in the modern world.