You need a comprehensive plan of all of your projects. Whether you diy or hire a gc you need a plan of attack. With an overall plan you can decide an order and budget, as well as deciding what is you and what is professional. I see so often people try to save money by doing things themselves but things get done in the wrong order or have to get redone because a plan changed. Hire someone to consult with you on an overall grand plan and figure out the way to break it down into manageable chunks.

Roof is very important. Leaks will ruin anything else you want to do. Plumbing is important, because, you dont want old rusty galvanized piping, to leak. Electric is important, because, unless the house has been rewired, it probably should be. Windows are important, and good doors are important. Things, should be done for general maintenance, safety, all before doing anything pretty.

I am in the same situation as you, but I did get an inspection done before I bought this house (1940).

My house might be a little different, but here the person before me was not a skilled finish carpenter, and so everything is not quite done. What I did was just take a sheet of paper, and room by room list all the details that needed to be done. It's an overwhelming, comprehensive list, but I know what needs to be done. I even added what I thought were costs, and then we did a budget with a weekly amount allocated to the house. This will give you an idea of how much it will cost, and when your home will be mostly done. (Spoiler alert: an old house is never really finished)

What others have said is true though, you want to be sure the main things are buttoned up first like roof, foundation, windows and insulation. I am not a huge proponent of electrical upgrades because I am an electrician and know that while standards have changed, if an old house is an old house, the wiring probably is fine, even if it's not modern in scope. But if you got walls opened up, yeah I would upgrade the wiring as I went, or toss in GFCI's or arc faults if they are not there now.

Once those are buttoned up though, I would just go room by room. It's tempting to jockey around and get the fun things done in different rooms, and frustrating to spend money on little things that really don't matter, but then you end up with my house; a huge house where nothing is quite done. Instead, go room by room.

Oh, and have fun too. Remember, it is NOT just the finish project that matters, but that you are increasing your skillset and enjoying the task at hand as you are doing it!

If you choosse to get an inspection do the work to find a competent, experienced construction professional to do it with you. Someone who has only completed the 6 week home inspector correspondence course won't be much help to you. Find someone who will walk through with you, explain what they are looking at and why, and help you to prioritize projects. Start with structure and water control, move to insulation and air infiltration, then plumbing, electric, and HVAC, finally finishes and cosmetics.

DIY home rebuilding is fun and can be a good value. Nothing about the process is rocket surgery (except perhaps finish plastering), just read, watch and learn as much as you can, try, without fear of failure, and be prepared to rip it out and do it again if it isn't right. Those failures "learning experiences" are simply tuition for the learning process. After a while you'll accumulate a nice set of tools and things will mistly be right the first time.

In our houses DIY has allowed us to use much better grades of materials than we could have afforded otherwise as well as having much more carefully detailed finishes than we could have paid someone to do. I've done almost everything from painting to jacking up buildings to replace rotted sills and rebuild failing foundations. It's all doable.

Don't be tempted to avoid permits and inspections. They exist for good reasons and skipping them can come back to bite you hard. Depending on your jurisdiction you may or may not be able to DIY some tasks, particularly plumbing and electric. You may be wise to avoid others like roofing and plastering just because they are hard, dangerous without proper equipment, or have too steep a learning curve.

You might save some money, you can almost certainly end up with a better job and a great deal of satisfaction from having done the work.

So, what I take from all of what you said is that I don’t necessarily need an inspection because a General Contractor can accomplish the same thing. We got a new roof a couple of years ago, new windows, andnee central heat and air. That is all we have done in 20 years. So, my plan is to contact a couple of GC to access the foundation first, the exterior flashing/gutters and the plumbing. I am not too worried about aesthetics. The sunroom seems to be detaching from the house so I group that in with foundation. After the basics are taken care of them I will move to gutting the bathrooms and expanding the closets. Once again, thank y’all so much for taking the time to answer— y’all are so kind!

That sounds like a good plan. Maintenance always comes before pretty. Foundation is very important. We all like pretty, and its tempting, but, having a safe well maintained house is always the way to go. Good Luck.

More great advice. Thank you!!! I agree with @ShadyWillowFarm about being here 22+ years and knowing what works and doesn’t. My fear was that there may underlying issues that an inspector would look for that I wouldn’t even think of. Thank you for sharing the advice that you have gathered over the past couple of decades and letting me know that some inspections can go straight to the trash.

Our washer and dryer are in the kitchen so moving plumbing would be required then just gutting kitchen to bare minimum - very minimaistic is what I am going for. Removing a couple of walls and gutting the main bath and half bath are also wanted. I agree that I need the help of professionals for those things and like you said @rwiegand the rest I will try to figure out and enjoy the process as I go. Thanks so much again y’all, for taking the time out to share your wisdom and experience. I am so grateful for being able to reach out and get answers on this platform.

Btw @HALLETT & Co. beautiful projects on your website. Y’all are doing some great work in Savannah!!

I still want to spend as little as possible and DIY as much as I can.

Hallett gave you excellent advice.

I would hire a professional for most of the major things, especially if you haven't DIY'd before. In the long run what you don't know might wind up costing you more. Prime example: My ex was extremely handy and always did an excellent job. When we moved into our first house, we had a mini kitchen (sink and fridge) in our master suite. We needed the space for a WIC instead, so ex decided he'd disconnect everything and haul it away. I don't remember how it happened but when he went to disconnect the pipes, we wound up with water spewing everywhere. At the time, back in the 1980's, it became almost a $1000 mess which was a lot of money then!

Things you can definitely DIY are painting, wallpapering, tiling a kitchen backsplash, putting in new faucets, changing handles, etc.

Just to make sure we are on the same page - if you think you have foundation problems and your sunroom is detaching from the house, you do need that evaluated by a professional. When you said “inspection,” I thought of what most buyers pay for after going under contract to buy a house. That process involves a lot of things like making sure all the outlets work, checking for cracked windows, do all the systems work, do the appliances work, looking at the roof, etc. You may need to involve more than one contractor; some are kitchen/bath specialists who can do a great kitchen/bath job for you at a good price, but won’t necessarily have the knowledge to advise you on the foundation issues.

There are books on DIY inspections or what a house inspection entails. I'd start by buying one of these. Some items might require a different pro. For example, when we got our house inspected before buying it, they recommended a chimney pro to send a camera up the chimney. But there was a lot of other stuff they'll cover that you'll already know. Equally, there might be things that you suspect, like some wood rot that might be invisible, except in carpenter ant season.

I would not be too hard on yourself gor not getting an inspection. Inspectors have but a few hours to find all the problems that home sellers have had months to hide.