This Family Of 5 Members Builds Their Own Home

Photo: Cara Brookins via carabookins.com

This single mom and her children built their home from scratch by watching YouTube tutorials. The family built the 3,500 square foot house in only 9 months. When Cara Brookins (Author/Computer Analyst) said to the media, "Everything hurt, everything was dirty. It was a case of leaving the office job, coming home, changing clothes, throwing the kids into work clothes, hitting the job site, he ended up being very manipulative and physically abusive. So by the time we left that, we were so broken. So it was just this idea of, we have to do something together and it has to be something big. It has to be action. And we also need a place to live. The foundation was definitely the biggest challenge, we jumped into this like, 'Yeah we can build a house, no problem' and then just realizing it's gonna be months before we're even building walls. There's this stuff under the ground that has to be done that we didn't fully understand when we began. Just learning how to talk to each other again, which is essential on a construction site. And, more importantly, learning how to laugh, let alone how to laugh at ourselves, cause when your self esteem is destroyed you get really defensive. Take an enormous leap and don't step back. Find your thing, it not be building a house, but do something big to change the way that you see yourself". Cara started the project at Little Rock, Arkansas after being a victim of domestic violence unable to afford a home where her whole family could fit. Cara bought the land and the tools in 2008, then she and her four children got to work. The building process brought  the family together. Cara even wrote a book about the journey. In 'Rise', she encourages people to take leaps towards big goals.