As far as building a house I can say we built our house. My Dad was the General Contractor. My husband did a lot of manual physical labor and helped with masonry work. We had to hire all the tradesmen, buy the materials. The house was started in June of 1975 and we moved in September of 1975. It seemed to take forever but was really fast and 99% finished when we moved in. The lawn was full of stones and was a ton of work. While building the house we lived it, breathed it, ate sawdust, we had tears, family arguments. We had worries over money, construction mortgage, buying the land...there was a ton of things. No, we didn't physically pound all the nails that hold the house together but we were there while the property was bulldozed, concrete foundation poured, sheet rock walls put in place, heating system installed, well drilled, septic system installed, tons of stuff. I was 22 and the Hub was 23 at the time. We saved the money on our own to get the property and then got a construction mortgage.
I guess it is a phrase like any other.