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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.'"
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.
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.”
Well you'd know the answer to that if you Read The Fucking Article.
You know, kind of like what she was doing.
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
> 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 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).
I don't even use restroom without watching a YouTube tutorial about it first.
Need a tutorial on bidets? You'll like this, I think
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
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?
So /. is now getting article submissions off of Reddit these days? Sad...
-> I dislike sigs...
That's not the point of the story. It's about child labour and the great things you can achieve with it (as the chinese have proven gazillion times).
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.
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."
Because the market is highly inflated, and it is a quite known way to rob people blind.
The fact that banks lend money over such a long span of time, also it means again there is a carte blanche to inflate even more the prices.
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.
It's not child labor when they are your own children you are forcing to work from dawn to dusk. It's called parenting.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
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.
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.