Mom Escaped Troubled Marriage & Built New House Using Online Videos And Her Children’s Help

Sep 29, 2023

Trigger Warning: This article contains mentions of domestic violence that may be troubling for some readers.

After two bad marriages that involved domestic abuse, Cara Brookins and her four young children moved out of the house into a smaller, more affordable home — much too small for the entire family — in Little Rock, Arkansas, to get away from the toxic relationships she'd endured previously. Struggling to house her large family as a single mother, Brookins came up with an unconventional solution shortly thereafter. With the help of tutorials on YouTube, Brookins and her children built a new home from scratch.

Brookins came up with her ambitious plan after renting a Thanksgiving getaway cabin. On the way to the cabin, Brookins and her kids — aged 17, 15, 11 and 2 at the time — came upon the wreckage of a house that had been destroyed by a tornado.

“It was this beautiful dream house and it was sort of wide open,” Brookins told CBS News. “You don’t often get the opportunity to see the interior workings of a house, but looking at these 2x4s and these nails, it just looked so simple. I thought, ‘I could put this wall back up if I really tried. Maybe I should just start from scratch.’”

Following Brookins’ epiphany, she checked her finances and discovered she had just enough money to buy not only the construction supplies but also an acre of land for their new home. Once she'd purchased the raw materials and the land, however, Brookins didn’t have any money left over to afford outside help — so the burden of building a new house from scratch fell on Brookins and her kids. As Brookins told CBS News, “There was no Plan B.” 

While some of us consult YouTube to figure out how to fix a dishwasher or replace a lightbulb, building a house from scratch seems next to impossible, especially for a family without professional construction experience. But as Brookins said, her family didn’t really have any other choice.

“This was 2008, so YouTube was not then what it is now. There weren’t really comprehensive videos or channels devoted to this sort of thing,” she told CBS News. “But there’s a lot of ways to frame a window or to put a foundation together. So, we would watch three or four videos for each stage of construction and then think, ‘Which one of these is going to work the best for us?’”

Brookins' entire family, except her toddler, got to work to help build the home of their dreams without any previous experience. One child marked wood, another ran the nail gun, and someone watched over the toddler while the rest of the family worked. But Brookins doesn’t mince words when she describes the project — it wasn't easy.

“It hurt,” Brookins said. “It was not something that was a great match to us physically, but my kids got up every day and they came out here. I was working all day and they were in school, and we would work into the night sometimes by headlights. It was incredibly intense. There was nobody going to the movies. There were no dates, no hanging out. It was all hands on deck.”

Eventually, it got done, and Brookins and her family ended up with a safe home that was big enough for all of them. They also gained the experience of coming together to take on what seemed impossible. Brookins even published a book that detailed the process back in 2017.

When asked if she had advice for others who are in trying circumstances, she told CBS News to ignore the “baby steps” cliche when it comes to changing your life.

“Everybody says, ‘If you just take a small step every day, it will get better.’ In my experience, though, it doesn’t,” she told CBS News. “You have to make a big leap. It has to be this huge, enormous act.” 

Would you have been able to build a home from scratch to save your family? How do you think Cara Brookins managed to do it? Let us know, and make sure to pass Brookins' incredible story on to friends and family members.

If you or anybody you know is struggling with domestic violence, please call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233. The Hotline provides 24/7, free, and confidential support for you or your loved ones, and best practices for professionals.