>>... My wife and I did most of the work ourselves..... Yeah, right.
We built our current house in the mid 90s.
When asked if I built it myself I usually answer:
"I used my own two hands... to write the checks..."
To be fair, I did do a (very little) of the electrical work (low voltage stuff), made sure all phone wires were double runs of CAT5e, all were direct 'home runs' to the basement corner where the phone service was to come in.
In retrospect I wish I'd put in conduit so I could pull fiber, but 5e works fine with gigabit to anywhere in the house, longer runs a bit problematic for PoE. Also I wish I'd run CAT5 to the thermostats. But it was the 90s, the internet wasn't really a residential 'thing' let alone IoT.
Also, when people ask me what I paid I have to say "I don't really know". So many checks, not all obviously house construction related.
Apologies for going so far off your topic...