Five months, $12,000 and the helping hands of 25 volunteers have built a new house for a New Brunswick couple.

Charlotte and Jay Allan both have physical disabilities and four years ago found themselves living in a small, rundown trailer in Salem.

Ant-infested, leaking and warped floors that were almost impassible by Jay's wheelchair left the couple wondering how they would ever be able to make the repairs the home needed on their disability payments.

"I had to put pots all down the hallway to catch the water, you stood in the living room [and] you could feel the breeze blowing in your shirt. It was pretty bad," Charlotte told CBC News.

Pat Carr, a resident of the neighbouring community of Hillsborough, heard about the couple's plight five months ago.

When Carr saw the conditions Charlotte, who has the spine deformity scoliosis, and Jay, who is paralyzed from the waist down from a workplace accident nine years ago, were living in, he rallied members at Hillsborough Baptist Church to build a new home for the Allans.

"We took a leap of faith," Carr said. "We didn't have five cents when we started but we knew that we could make this happen and all the people that helped reinforced that."

Charlotte said when they had initially asked friends for help fixing up some of the problems around their old home, they never expected to have a new one built.

'Overwhelming feeling'

"Well, what I said first was that we don't need a whole house," she said. "We don't need something that expensive. All we need is, you know, a new roof, new windows, new doors and a new floor. That's all I needed. That's all I ever wanted. God's plan was bigger."

Donations of time, funds and building supplies from churches, individuals as far away as Moncton and businesses made the project possible, Carr said.

About $12,000 was raised and 1,850 labour hours were put in by 25 volunteers to build the wheelchair-accessible 1,000-square foot home for the Allans.

Charlotte was welcomed into the new home on Thursday after living in an apartment since September while her community built her a place to live.

Jay is in the Moncton Hospital with pressure sores related to his paralysis and isn't expected to move in until May. But he's still being kept up-to-date on the move-in via e-mail photos.

"To go from living in the trailer that was falling down around us to be able to say, 'Wow this is mine,' was just an overwhelming feeling," Jay said.

Carr said he hopes the home will be inspiring to other communities.

"There's all sorts of things that we could be doing to help our neighbours," he said, "and that's what we're supposed to be doing."