When I was younger and flat broke, I was offered a place to stay in my friends' house. It was a room in an old, unfinished basement, and I thought it'd be nice to have some walls. Being without funds to hire anyone, I decided I could probably learn how to frame some walls and cover them with sheetrock. I bought a remodeling book and set about the task. After taking five times longer than it would probably take someone with any experience, I had walls and a pretty awful looking taping job on the sheetrock. Since then, I've had several construction jobs. I gradually became pretty capable at swinging a hammer, but I probably could've jumped light years ahead by not trying to learn everything myself that first time. I guess that's the way I usually work, and I've learned to embrace it.