My first instinct was to buy some plans (usually about $50) and do everything from start to finish on my own. I felt that my sense of reward would be greater if I built it from scratch. And it probably would have been but there are three major reasons I went with a kit. The first is that because the companies that sell kits buy in bulk, it is either the same price or even cheaper to buy a kit than it is to purchase all the material on your own. The second reason is that making a kayak from scratch takes about ten times the amount of work and time and I had a limited time window. Plus lots of that extra work comes in the form of figuring out where to buy all your supplies which is something I would rather have someone else do for me. Finally, there was the fact that I didn't have confidence that the kayak would turn out as nicely if I cut all the pieces myself as it would if I let the kit manufacturer's computer-guided-saws do the cutting down to a thousandth of an inch. So I decided to go with a kit.