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Woman Built House From the Ground Up Using Nothing But YouTube Tutorials (digitaltrends.com)
schwit1 quotes a report from Digital Trends: In this generation of self-starters and self-made women and men, do-it-yourself isn't just an option, it's a way of life. And if there's not an app for that, chances are there's a YouTube video for it. That was certainly the case for a woman named Cara Brookins, who is living proof that if you're willing to learn, you absolutely can. In 2008, Brookins was in the midst of a family struggle, having left a husband she called "violent and abusive." Looking to make a fresh start for herself, she took the idea of rebuilding quite literally, perhaps using the physical experience of constructing a house as an extension of her emotional and mental journey. Though she had no previous experience in construction or architecture, Brookins found a series of YouTube tutorials on building a home and got to work. Over the course of nine months, Brookins worked tirelessly with the help of her four children to build a new home for themselves. "I had rented this cabin for a Thanksgiving getaway," the mother of four told CBS News. "And driving there, we passed this house that had been ravaged by a tornado. It was this beautiful dream house and it was sort of wide open. 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.'"
I don't even use restroom without watching a YouTube tutorial about it first.
Stupid headline
I bet she used some bricks or wood or something, too.
-Dave
I dont know how it works elsewhere but here in Australia there are a number of jobs (electrical work, plumbing, telecom work and others) that you can't legally do unless you have the right license.
please, do not feed this troll
I'm guessing that she burned the videos onto something solid and used them to build the house.
Or, could it be the title is misleading?
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
Unlike many professional builders, she passed each inspection on the first try.
You are an idiot. I used to live in a country where the majority of people built there own houses 50 and even 30 years ago. Those are weathering much better then those built by "professionals"
I would have believed: "Woman complains about previous relationship, slurring ex-partner, while paying various males to build a house all the while telling them what they are doing wrong."
I built my own house. It's not exactly rocket science - and I was a rocket scientist IRL.
ahh.. The good ol Tract Housing. Ive seen them go up in 30 days when the owners pay an extra 10k
What you say is largely true about the people in the minimum wage sector of society, but you should have read the article before ranting.
She and her children are obviously smart and hard working. Having BOTH these characteristics is the advantage she has over those who will never get out of their situation.
I cannot understand what is wrong with you that you would say "but she didnt pull herself up by anything, by definition, because she had time and money to build a fucking house." Your statement is contrary to fact. Learn To Read.
I used to teach at a community college and we had so many students just as you described - minimum wage, kids, and black eyes and bruises. And not all single parents are female. And not everyone with the minimum wage job that decides to improve themselves is abused.
They took classes whenever they could to get a skill for a real job. They, too, pulled themselves up with brains and work just like the story above. Every single semester right here in America. And yeah, lots of them failed to finish.
I'm sorry that your friends can't get out of their ruts, but everyone in America is told almost from birth what the game is, how to play it, and most important, how not to play it.
Here's what you missed by not reading the article:
So, over the course of the next nine months, Brookins, a 110-pound computer analyst, and her four kids built their dream home from the ground up. They did everything from hand-mixing the mortar for the foundation to running gas lines and framing walls. And while it wasn’t easy, they persevered.
“It hurt,” she told CBS News. “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.”
Work hard my working friend. Wall St. will be needing your money again so they can go on a $400k retreat at a spa on taxpayer money.
Too big to fail, we need to work ourselves to death so Goldman can light their cigars with $100s. First Paulson, now Mnuchin.
Don't forget you need to pay for every fat persons health care since its a basic human right now.
Some people are good at music, some people are good at math, some people are good at following instructions.
The various building codes are quite thorough, specifying the measurements and everything needed for safe construction. A typical construction site isn't a bunch of geniuses, it's a bunch of average people who more or less know how engineers and predecessors decided their job should be done (in terms of safety). Electricians refer to a table of wire gauge vs length - a set of instructions. (If they bother to do that, rather than just always use the same gauge for all 20-amp circuits). The electrical code says what size wire they must use. Plumbers put in whatever size pipe is required by code, etc. They don't calculate the velocity of drain flow at each job, they just refer to the code (instructions).
The inspectors then check the work as it progresses to make sure it's done according to code.
If a person is good at finding and following instructions, there's little to nothing about building a house they can't do themselves. I've built a room onto a house, from foundation to roof. It just so happens I'm terrible at music, but very good at following instructions. My current house needs a lot of work. When I moved in, several electrical outlets weren't working. I spent an hour to fix them all, paying attention to have my work meet code, and common-sense safety. I had to tear out a wall and two sinks and replace them. I followed instructions. I'm not a construction genius, I'm just bad at dancing and good at following instructions.
> Fuck females
I certainly prefer that to the alternative.
I suspect that your subject line may be something you have little experience doing, though.
I now realize that it was obvious from the get-go.
I never really understand comments like this. My mother was smart and handy. Growing up she taught me lots of useful around the house skills. Painting, plumbing, electrical work.
Must be kinda sad being threatened by competent women all your life.
In the US, you need a license to offer attorney services for hire, but you can represent yourself, acting as your own attorney. In most states, you need a license to have people pay you as a locksmith, but you can fiddle with your own lock all day if you choose. You need a license to be hired as an electrician, but you can replace a light switch in your own house.
New construction and certain types of remodeling require that the city inspector check your work - whether you're a professional or not.
Does Australia have big hardware / home improvement stores like the US, where you can buy drywall, light switches, wire, and plumbing pipe? I'd bet most of the customers in those stores aren't licensed professionals, they are working on their own home. The home improvement store near me has a guy who has worked there over 20 years and really knows his stuff. If your local store has a guy like that, I might be interesting to ask him if Aus sn't similar - you need to be licensed to work on someone else's house for a fee, but you're free to work on your own house, so long as you follow code (ie do the job correctly).
It's okay, we ahve several "liberal" cities where you have to pay off a union to get work done, but by and large, most counties only care if it's done by code. You can pull a permit and do the work yourself. As someone else pointed out, you do have to have a lineman (power company) to hook up to the mains, but that's because they own the lines, and you have to have a licensed plumber to connect to city water and sewer (because you can fuck that up and poison people), and the gas company will hook to the gas main, but other than actually touching the utilities, everything else you may do for yourself in the free parts of the country.
Now, and as a right-wing, gun loving nutjob, I agree, that you have to be licensed to sell those services to other people, as you stand a decent chance of really screwing someone else by fucking up their house, But, as long as you can get the licenses reasonably, that's not an unreasonable certification. Hell, the flexible natural gas certification can be done entirely online. Plumbing and Electrical licenses require an apprenticeship and test in most municipalities, but those get you well certified well beyond the residential construction.
None of the skilled trades in residential construction require a high school diploma. Any reasonable intelligent person who's willing to learn can learn them on the job.
"Person Built House" would be forced and awkward. Also, if her husband had been tried and convicted for domestic violence they could probably say that, without that not using the "she called" part of the phrasing might leave them open to a libel case.
I definitely have had a "violent and abusive" husband and I have 'nothing' too. But I am unable to build a house. I am not really sure which part I am missing. May be I need more sob stories to fasten the planks?
It takes the experience to know the difference between doing and understanding.
then how is it relevant to the story? You can't play both the "she's a poor victim" and "we're covering our asses in case she's not really a victim" cards.
All they achieved with this format is to fluff the story without giving it substance.
lucm, indeed.
So /. is now getting article submissions off of Reddit these days? Sad...
-> I dislike sigs...
Does this mean that houses are overpriced? If these guys where able to pull it through, why are they so costly in the first place?
Yeah, totally not sexist. /s
In 2008, Brookins was in the midst of a family struggle, having left a husband she called "violent and abusive."
So not only the fact that she's a woman matters in this story, it's also important to throw some suspicion on her story of domestic violence.
Regardless of her gender or personal situation[1], what she did (which I assume is true, I haven't RTFA) is nothing short of brilliant. This woman has a great future ahead of her if she learned and executed all the skills necessary to build a house from scratch.
Very few people can do that.
[1] Both are irrelevant.
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
Exactly. The fact she's a woman or was in an abusive relationship is irrelevant to her accomplishment. It should stand alone in its own right.
Men have rights, you know. Even if you don't like it.
I wasn't aware the average wage was over $120k
But it might help inspire other women in abusive relationships. So it's worth mentioning anyway.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
The exact point is how she paid them.
I have pictures of my dad building my parents house. Not single handed and of course not the part that needs heavy machines, but the brick walls were build by him and his friends.(and help from his dad, who was the actual crafty guy)
bickerdyke
Yeah that's a positive message. If you're in an abusive relationship, don't worry! Just leave everything you have, learn how to build your own house whilst still doing whatever it is you're supposed to be doing as well, and it will all work out fine.
Who says this was all paid labor, however the women wants to hide the assets to maximize the alimony pension paid by the sucker^H^H^H^Hex-husband?
Why no link in the summary to this awsome youtube series she used? The link in the summary that looks like it should go there instead goes to another article about the story, which itself also does not link to the youtube series mentioned...
So not only the fact that she's a woman matters in this story, it's also important to throw some suspicion on her story of domestic violence.
I think so - domestic violence very often leaves the survivor with little self-confidence, and the fact that she has managed to not only pick herself up and leave a violent man, but had enough pluck to take on a demanding challenge like this, is remarkable - and perhaps inspiring to others in her situation too. Perhaps what she did was just the right thing; doing practical, hard work can be a real therapy, and the sense of achievement is pure gold. Any engineer knows this.
I built my own house. It's not exactly rocket science - and I was a rocket scientist IRL.
It is, however, one HELL of a lot of work and the difficulty level is far, far beyond what most people can do. As an engineer working on complex systems like rockets, you really ought to have the skill yo put together a house. For someone untrained, it's especially impressive.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1250095662/ref=cm_sw_su_dp
Website: https://carabrookins.com
And built a house, and ALL professional looking, how did she find the time?
Gotta say it is all so slick something fishy here.
Woman: The dishwasher is full.
Man: I can get another 25 plates in here. Watch.
You know it's true.
... But then they were removed due to copyright infringement complaints and I was left homeless. :(
Geeks are so full of shit that "beating the crap out of them" takes a whole new meaning.
The article talks about them doing it in 9 months then about where Youtube was at 9 years ago.
As someone in the middle of their own self taught renovation project I'm interested in the details of the build. Unfortunately I can't find anything beyond photos of her posing in the finished house and adverts for her associated book.
"Physics is to math as sex is to masturbation." -R. Feynman
Also: I recognise the implied sadness in the "was" there. My mother too, alas, was.
Well, one doesn't usually do things without some sort of impulse or reason, so these often get mentioned in articles.
Ezekiel 23:20
You would be right if the actual future was in building homes, it isn't though. What she has done is market her unique story, now she can profit off of her 15 minutes of fame. That DOES require her story to be more interesting than "person watches YouTube videos and copies them" instead it needs to be "former wife of an abusive husband and her children use YouTube to construct home from thwork ground up". The first one is a DIY network tidbit, the second is a Lifetime movie. All in the marketing.
First off, building a house isn't hard, I've done it. But, I can see why nerds would be excited about it, since it's a) a woman, b) had some emotional baggage unrelated to the house, but included in the story, and c) references Youtube. The other thing you need to build a house is large amounts of time and money. A better headline would be "Woman with lots of resources successfully does something humans have been doing for thousands of years".
https://naldc.nal.usda.gov/dow...
Yup. Quite handy. You can get a hard copy from Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Wood-Fr...
She used the how-to videos as concrete blocks and lolcat videos as "I can haz mortarz!"
I like best that all a woman has to do is accuse and it's accepted as truth. I think we need balance. Let's see a bunch of male articles where they throw in, "Yah, It was rough after leaving my whore wife who wouldn't stop with the mind games.".
Then it isn't news for nerds nor stuff that matters. It's a feel good story. Other than the loosely tied plug for YouTube, it is pointless.
This crap was a puff piece a month ago on the evening news, and now it's making it to /.?
I am shocked!! Its almost like there was an effort to drum up interest.
From her bio: Cara Brookins is a computer analyst and social media marketing expert based in Little Rock.
This woman has a great future ahead of her if she learned and executed all the skills necessary to build a house from scratch.
I've called around to all the local lumber yards, and no one has scratch, so I guess I'm dead in the water for my home building project. I'll check at the grocery store too, since I understand you can make pies from scratch as well.
But to the point of the article, one of the most useful things on Youtube is those instructional tutorials. I use them all the time to eliminate a lot of guesswork and unneeded disassembly when working on my cars or motorcycle, or various work around the house or in radio. I have a few tutorials I made myself about Software Defined Radio.
Some of the tutorials we find aren't that professional, or the person isn't all that great at communicating, or is long winded. But they all get an A for the intentions of being helpful to others.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
It's quite safe, actually. The codes may be voluminous but they are designed with a HS education level in mind. A basic house is actually quite easy to build if you dedicate the time required to understand how the parts go together and have good instructional materials.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
It was a shed by rest-of-the-world standards. Outside of USA, e.g. Europe, only the dog's "house" gets built of wooden planks. Usually it is bricks, stone, concrete being used to build a home or office, maybe whole tree logs if you are russian or scandinavian. And of course, rest-of-the-world houses have foundations, often including a fully sub-terranean basement that can withstand a war.
The beefier construction makes houses last many hundreds of years (*), so the successive generations of families are not that easy to displace coast-to-coast on the whim of a capitalist pig, to to serve his profit interests. Thereby, you just don't get a Detroit in Europe, it takes a volcano or a nuclear disaster to depopulate a city, not even a mere earthquake will do.
(*) For example, in Venezia it is hard to find a palace or any house for that matter, built AFTER the late 1700s and many hail from the 1400-1500s (gothic era and early renaissance). In the USA, any town is proud to display a 90 (ninety) year old church to every passer-by, because such an old building is a rare find in the county or even in the whole state.
It is, however, one HELL of a lot of work and the difficulty level is far, far beyond what most people can do.
It's considerable work, yes. The difficulty level is mentally low, but physically significant. I'd want to be buying pre-built trusses, because coming up with a good surface upon which to construct them is difficult.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Youtube instructions can be dangerously wrong, either maliciously or by incompetence. Would YOU frame your house according to the average of a few Youtube videos? If two youtube videos conflict, how do you resolve the difference? I'm a DIY builder too, but relying solely on the internet is wildly stupid, especially when it comes to installing dangerous stuff like electricity. The best way to learn something correctly is to ask someone who is confirmed to know how to do it properly. Doesn't have to be a professional, but you should be able to verify the expertise level, which you can't do on YouTube.
I've fixed a lot of shitty work done by licensed contractors in rentals. They're so shady that sending pictures generally gets them to refund the labor because any one of them would get their license pulled.
I'm sure everything's fine dandy until you come to try and insure or sell it.
WTF? You built your own house but then left out the rocket pad?!? Dude, you waited your whole life to "grow up" and acquire the means to obtain everything that child-you wanted, and then you blew it!
Oh, you built a submarine base instead? Ok, fine. Sorry I snapped at you above.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
I had always seen my grandmother's house as a two story place all my life. But before my aunt was born, it was a single floor built for families after the end of WWII.
My grandmother did all the architectural design for the upper floor. Including routing electrical, and making sure the load bearing was handled, roof lines, stairwells (I *hate* calculating stairs!) insulation and everything. Then supervised the build crew to clarify any points while construction was done.
All from books scored at the library and some phone calls to her brother who, as midwestern farmer, also built most of his own buildings.
I always "blamed" my grandmother, and mother, for setting my expectations of womens' capabilities unusually high LOL
If you have access to tools, which you can either rent or find at tool libraries at most community colleges, it usually takes about 12-16 weeks to build a fully functional top of the line house.
Land is the primary expense in housing in most urban areas.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Oh lord... do you really need to bring unrelated politics into this? Obama issued a 6mo ban on Iraqi refugees while he was president for literally the same reason Trump issued his ban; where was your outcry then?
If she wasn't such a gorgeous babe there would be no story. This is all about eye candy. Not house building.
I have all the rights I require to be successful and happy. I'm not sure what your problem is
"In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson
Why don't you put down the fedora and the red pill and go have a nice relaxing vape or something?
That's interesting. To me, there are positives and negatives to be able to do your own work. I do my own electrical, and I do it right. One of my good friends is a licensed electrician. I help him from time to time and he's not yet pointed out any safety issues with my work. I taught my brother, or helped him learn, and he just passed his certification test today. In other words, I can do the work right, and know when to call my electrician friend with questions (or look it up in the electric code).
On the other hand, I just bought a house from a guy who shouldn't have been doing his own electrical work. It's okay because of course we had the house inspected before purchase, so I knew I'd need to correct a couple of issues with the wiring.
Starring Amy Adams maybe
You're missing the point. The issue here is that they said this:
left a husband she called "violent and abusive."
instead of:
left a violent and abusive husband.
Either it's true or it's not, throwing in "she called" is a combination of ass-covering and clickbait.
lucm, indeed.
Yah, It was rough after leaving my whore wife who wouldn't stop with the mind games..
Why didn't you leave her earlier if she was playing mind games? Even better: why did you marry her in the first place? You missed the red flags? Or maybe you are looking for abusive relationships because you have issues.
lucm, indeed.
I'm impressed that easily available resources on the internet is sufficient for anyone to build a house. I wonder if the article would see the same kind of comments if it was a man...
It's a standard technique taught in speaking groups like Toastmasters. You need a hook to create a bit of drama for your story. You can talk about helping your sick grandmother, or the child with leukemia, or someone overcoming great odds. You see this all the time on television commercials...if they're not using sex to sell, they're telling you it's better for your children, or your safety. You see it in every political campaign when they give some stupid anecdote to sell you a bill of goods.
So yeah, her situation with her ex isn't germane to the story, but people will relate, or feel sad for her, and then happy she overcame it all...real or not.
Just another day in Paradise
My significant other grew up in a similar situation. To her description, she was child labor building her ex-step-mother's house, and later farmhand. She deeply resented the constant labor (which can be painful, as anyone who's actually labored knows) and complete lack of a normal childhood/teenage social life. Sure, she now has the skill and knowledge to build a house in her sleep, but no desire to ever touch a hammer or screwdriver again.
It's the sort of thing that makes a nice story for mom to sell a book on, but might not be so great for the kids living it.
You're missing her most important skills. She can play the victim and self-starter at the same time. She can press-gang her kids into being a cheap labor force (she was going to have to feed/clothe them anyways). She can write a book (or at least have one ghost-written). And most importantly, she can shamelessly self-promote. She's going to have a bright future indeed.
Yeah, they built a house from the ground up. That's a solid accomplishment and they should be proud. But this is basically just begging to be showered with accolades.
I did this same program, via USDA (or HUD, if you're in an urban area):
http://ourselfhelphomes.utahtopia.com/
Dodgy server, but all the basic info is there. Best thing I ever did.
My wife and I are self-employed, no credit rating. Our house is a 3,500 square foot (total, including full basement and 2-car garage) beautiful custom home (based on one of several floor plans we chose). No money down, they used 3 on-time bills to establish credit. Our rent (~$1300/month) was higher than our house payments (currently $669/month) and we didn't make too much money, so we were immediately approved. Banks wouldn't even talk to us.
Or maybe it's simply because it's her version of the story and in the absence of some official ruling on this matter (by court?) they wanted to avoid a lawsuit? Also, whether it's true or not is irrelevant for the motivation factor: people act on what they believe is true rather than on what objectively is true. Our brains have no "sensing truth at a distance" feature built in.
Ezekiel 23:20