TEXAS HOME
Our present home is on 17.12 acres in Montague County, Texas, about an hour north of the Dallas/Ft. Worth area. . The land is wooded and full of wildlife, and our site happens to be on a hill-side, where the eastern dining room windows face a wonderful view of the morning sunrise, and any time of the day the windows and deck running the length of the home on this side afford an relaxing display of the rolling countryside beyond. .the picture on the left is when the home was first built, in 1991, and shows the spring time ‘paint brush’ wildflowers that litter the yard and fields. . the picture to the right was taken today, August 18th, 2007 - trees much bigger, a gate remains where we once had fencing for the horses. .(taken down after the horses were sold).
The home is cabin style, rustic with lots of windows for openness, sided in western red cedar, and ‘quality’ constructed by ourselves. . . something we were not finding in ‘contract’ built homes. . Top grade lumber was used through-out, and treated lumber in all 
beams and pillars beneath (post and beam flooring) and decking. . the main flooring is 3/4″ tongue and groove plywood. .(after the walls were up, 3/8″ plywood was added in all areas that were to be carpeted or for vinyl. . . the kitchen, dining, living room and study all have another layer of 3/4″ solid pine flooring). .
The ‘pink’ lumber in the wall framing denotes ’stud grade’ lumber from McCoy’s Building Supply in Gainesville, Texas - where the supplies for almost the whole home came from. . The exterior walls were sheathed in plywood (not OSB board!) . .before the black tar paper (cut and trimmed to fit ‘into’ the door and window openings to seal out the weather, and layered from the bottom up for overlapping of seams) and western red cedar siding. . (two layers of wood on exterior!). .We built our own roof trusses. . a combination of the truss typical of 
today, and the ‘ridgeboard’ (a solid board that runs the length of the peak of the roof, typical of the older method of framing a roof in place, and not to be found in the use of roof trusses - wherein the gap between the roof trusses is open beneath the sheathing) - which applies a sturdier ‘peak’ to the roof - The trusses were built in halves, strengthened up with doubled support studs, then nailed in place with the ridgeboard between. . . the roof sheathing atop is again ‘plywood’ (!) . . not OSB!. . .(OSB - orientated strand board - what is used in most homes being built now . .it is cheaper, and consists of wood ‘chips’ and glue pressurized to form the board. . plywood is much stronger and holds up to the test of ‘time’ much better). .
(page under construction - more later)
