Do-It-Yourself House Building

Yes, sir. You like to work with your hands? You've got a tool set getting dusty? You want to share in the American dream of owning your own home?

Sears Roebuck to the rescue.

From 1908 to 1940, Sears sold house kits. That's right, house kits. Over 20 tons of materials would be shipped first by rail and then by truck directly to your (future) doorstep, ready for assembly. Wikipedia says that folks would put the houses together by gathering family and friends in an act of construction similar to an old-time barn-raising, which sounds about right because I don't care how handy you are, putting one of these suckers together by yourself probably would have taken about, oh, a lifetime.

The Betsy Ross (Four rooms and bath!) is one of the cheaper models, at $1691. That's about $23,000 in today's dollars, still quite a bargain:



One of my favorite sites, Retronaut, has a whole bunch of these from the 1923 catalog. Today, the houses built from these kits have a lot of extra cachet, and often sell for a premium in their local markets. As a person who can't screw in a nail, I am in awe of this phenomenon.
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