Can't get my home wireless to work

Hello,
I am barely computer literate so please use simple terms. A few days ago I unplugged my modem and now I can not get my home wireless to connect. I have turned off the modem and the wireless, I have reset both my wireless and land line modems and when I use access connections diagnostic tools I get error code 031 DHCP server not responding. I am within range of an unsecured network and that works ok but I can not get access to my home network. I have tried to restore to before the problem occurred and that didn't help either. I don't know what else to do. Any ideas would be appreciated.