As a kid I designed and built my own planes from scratch if I couldn't come up with the money for a kit, that's more work then I want to do these days. I started buying plans and just redrawing them to fit my needs, it's a lot easier then designing and drawing your own plane but it is true scratch building. Plans are cheap, wood is cheap and it only takes a few hours to cut your own kit. If you are good enough to build without instructions then plans building is the way to go. I enjoy it as much or more then kit building but if I can get a kit cheap enough then I go for it. Either or, I enjoy building.