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Your dream home is apparently only a year's worth of physical labor, cost of supplies, and a work crew of children away-- if you want it badly enough.

In 2008, single mother of four Cara Brookins felt trapped: she was simultaneously living with a violent and abusive husband and being stalked by a mentally ill ex. She knew that even if she left, she couldn't afford to buy a house big enough for her family.

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It was a classic "life gives you lemons" situation if your definition of lemons is like, really horrifying. As Brookins explains on her website, she took her lemons, her kids, a bank loan for an acre of land and construction supplies, and she built a house.

A 3,500-square-foot, 5-bedroom, 3-car garage dream house worthy of replication on the Sims.

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Brookins couldn't afford to pay for labor or construction crews, so with the sage wisdom of some resident Home Depot employees and a lot of YouTube videos, she and her kids learned how to build a house brick by brick.

Cara and her kids outside the house they built with their own damn handsCredit: COURTESY OF ASHLEY MURPHY

Driven by "a mile-wide stubborn streak," she writes on her website, and her kids' apparently passionate desire for their own bedrooms, they pulled off what would be the craziest HGTV show of all time.

Somehow we feel both inspired and horribly unaccomplished.

Bookins has since written a memoir about the experience, Rise, which comes out Jan. 24. You can put it on your bookshelf next to Wild and J.K. Rowling's inevitable memoir (or collection of tweets).

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TopicsFamily & Parenting