Posted on 01/24/2017 2:45:46 PM PST by simpson96
Just a few years ago, Cara Brookins and her four kids felt trapped -- powerless to stop the domestic abuse happening around them, prisoners inside their own walls.
You see, for a short time, Brookins was married to a man who she says “descended into full-blown paranoid schizophrenia.” And even after the two were divorced, he continued to come around and frighten her family. (snip)
Brookins didn’t have enough money to buy the sort of home that could comfortably house her four kids, but she wanted them to be in a safe place. So, they moved out of the house she shared with her abusive husband and into a tiny home outside of Little Rock, Arkansas. Then, shortly afterward, Brookins had an epiphany.
“I had rented this cabin for a Thanksgiving getaway,” she tells 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.’”
As it turned out, she had just enough money to buy all the construction supplies and an acre of land. So, without looking back, she and her family jumped headlong into the project.
“Once I had bought all these supplies and they were all piled up, there was no way out,” Brookins explains. “There wasn’t enough money to pay anyone to put them together. There was no plan B.”
Faced with the overwhelming task of constructing a house with their own hands, Brookins and her family turned to an unlikely source: YouTube.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
Bad tutorials usually have a title like "How to fix (gadget/item) with a few simple steps" then the video spends 10 minutes showing you funny things the guy's cat is doing and he doesn't get around to the actual tutorial until the very end.
But sadly these videos will get high ratings because people click it to see the funny cat and thus a really bad tutorial is at the top of the search list for the item you want to fix.
Yet there are some really good youtube channels with a huge selection of really good how to videos. You just need to hunt for them.
One of my favorite How To channels is 1A Auto I use it to work on my truck. They have tons of very specific how to videos on DIY Auto projects.
It's quite obvious that is a professionally done photograph, not just some news picture. It's done with a set of fill flashes with filters and then enhanced by the photographer at printing. I've had several done with my family in the past that have had similar results.
Actually, that is a well lit photo. It was shot with a flash, which brightens the foreground (the people are properly exposed) and the background is darkened. You see this all the time with outdoor portraits—usually forcing the blue sky to go really dark royal blue.
I was a professional photographer and photoshop “expert” for the past fifteen years.
I miss many of the manual controls on my old Minolta X700. I love many of the things my Nikon D80 can do.
She built that!
I did my kitchen with the help of You Tube videos — from the demo to the rebuild. We’re talking dry wall, cabinets, hard wood counter tops. Great stuff, totally!
Youtube tutorials helped me build my gaming computer, Beast1.
I subscribed to that channel just now for the future.
What major auto mechanics I was in ended in my senior year in 1989. I learned a lot. It was one of the few classes in HS that was good for anything. The rest was a re-hash of the past year.
amazing! what a beautiful family... on a side note: where i live, permits would be necessary throughout the project...
For a still, yea. It could also be a screen cap of a video. I can’t tell from the photo itself, but it seems to me there are reflections of video lighting on the windows of the house. While it’s possible to be interior lighting, I sorta doubt it. CBS News is a video centric organization.
Still got my 1st SLR a Minolta SRT 201.
My GH4 has got so many features that I’ve still have barely gotten into.
As much as I loved my Canons, the GH4 is a lot lighter and does great 4K video.
I’ve used a reflector sometimes. It can make a difference.
I am curious though re how long after completion the photo was allegedly taken, as the landscaping seems entirely too well established.
Of course, they could have taken all the money they saved and spent it on semi-mature trees & shrubbery, but somehow I doubt it.
Would also be interested to see the plumbing and electrical inspection signoffs, along with the homeowner's insurance appraisal.
Color me just a tad skeptical, but willing to be amazed ;-)
Thumbs up on the 1A auto. What I do for ANY project is look at a bunch of them and figure out which ones seem like they make the most sense. Then search on topics that I want to confirm or research more. (Replace or save transmission pan gasket?) In my case it said “inspect” the replaceable gasket. It leaked, so I bought a new one. No worries, I wanted to dump the pan a second time anyway.
Of course the amount of time I can spend sometime researching I could probably pay a mechanic. It sure is satisfying though to get a quote of $800 and put in the $180 part myself! BTW - I always try to buy the original equipment - like AC Delco stuff for my Chevy. It costs more, but on Amazon it is still half the price or more than what the mechanic will charge for the same part. Sometimes I’ll get another brand if I think it is better, like some of the “high performance” things. I think my spark plug wires that I replaced were some “better” high performance brand.
Here is a true super hero woman. Bravo.
If B.O. were still president he’d tell her she didn’t build it.
We own a 40 ft sailboat that I have totally redone inside using the net and YouTube. If something breaks I just look it up. I replaced the faucet in the master berth bathroom recently. I replaced all the port lights with dead lights. A water pump, navigation lights, etc. If I have an idea I look around to find the easiest way to implement it. All my male neighbors are in awe of what I can do. Lol
It started in 2008 and the youngest child of 4 was 2 years old. He's much older in this picture.
In the linked article, there are pictures taken of "work in progress".
Just imagine the possibilities though - every class and topic your children learn could be digitized recordings from the best and most informed instructors in the world. Talk about raising the bar! And what would eventually evolve from that boggles the mind.
eHow is a decent site; the problem in my area (northeastern NJ) is that since the area has been built out for decades now it is hard for professional tradesmen to make a living. Years ago I called an electrician and he said he could LOOK AT the job in THREE MONTHS...
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