(Picture: Cara Brookins)

A woman who was trapped in an abusive marriage managed to escape by building herself a new house from scratch.

Cara Brookins, from Arkanas, took out a small bank loan and bought an acre of land, before sitting in front of hundreds of YouTube tutorials on construction.

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Together with her kids, Cara then set about laying bricks, setting floors and making counters.

And now the family lives in a five bedroom house with a three-car garage.


She says on her website that she’s always been keen on building things, and as a child spent her time making ‘very small things like scarves for my stuffed seal and sleeping bags for caterpillars’.

(Picture: Cara Brookins)

‘After I grew up and had four kids of my own, I should have built big things but I was in several situations that made me feel smaller than ever, like domestic violence and being stalked by a man with mental illness, so my goals and my future stayed small too.’



It wasn’t until one day in 2007, when Cara was alone with her children that she spotted a house that had been hit by a tornado. Only its foundation was left and she started to wonder whether she’d be able to put something similar together herself.

It was then that she decided that it was time to get her family out of their situation.

(Picture: Cara Brookins)

By building an entire house.

We’re not talking some small, DIY-like property here.

No, Cara and her kids built a huge 3,500 square foot home – complete with a two-story treehouse.

(Picture: Cara Brookins)

She bought $150,000-worth of materials and equipped with a tonne of YouTube videos, she set about building her dream home.

And they’ve been living at Inkwell Manor ever since.

(Picture: Cara Brookins)

She says that at the time, she kept her project a secret from coworkers and her kids’ friends because ‘the shame surrounding domestic violence takes a lot of work to sweat away’.

However, as the house went up brick by brick, her family underwent a transformation too.

‘While our toes nearly froze off as we mixed concrete in a wheelbarrow, our back muscles ached from hauling two-by-fours, and we sweated and itched our way through fiberglass insulation – we also rebuilt our broken family.’

(Picture: Cara Brookins)

And now she’s written a memoir detailing her family’s resurrection, from battered victims to construction gurus.

Rise will be out 24 January, in case you’re after some inspirational reading.

MORE: How you can help women escaping domestic violence

MORE: Domestic violence victim’s powerful open letter to boyfriend who beat her

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