What an amazing difference a bit of vintage salvaged trim can make in the designs.
This is how to create a home that is different from the cookie-cutter factory boxes people pay a fortune for despite their limited projected lifespan due to be made with inferior parts. Wood is king!
MARCH 1, 2026 BY TINYTEXASHOUSES
Here is a bathroom window that will be right next to the toilet. Trim added, not fully oiled, nor painted, still in progress.
What does it mean to be screwed? Screwed together, that is, not with nails, but torx head screws to hold the pieces until the nails are added once I am sure all things are where I want them to be.
Every piece you see was salvaged from another home and saved to use to create a home that will last for a century. This is wood from mature, well-aged trees. Walnut trees take decades to begin producing walnuts, let alone usable lumber to build with. Texas was stripped of its best Black Walnut over 100years ago, much like the giant Cypress that were all cut down during the days of the lumber barons who paid with tokens they pressed themselves instead of paying with usable currency, effectively keeping their workers enslaved and only able to spend their earnings at company stores, renting company housing, and doomed to have nothing if they get fired from their job and forced to leave the lumber camps, family and all. Desperation and poor wages forced the children to start working at 12 years old or earlier if able, cleaning the sawmills at night while the work crews slept.
Rather than throw away life energy and man-hours after using the trim and wood for just a single home, why not turn this treasure into new homes for the millions who need them? Why build McMansions built to last perhaps 30 years that few can afford or maintain when you can create homes that last for lifetimes instead?
If variety is the spice of life, then this house holds more life than any other made in a factory. It is full of love, pride in craftsmanship, and the promise to sustain itself as a home with a little care, and to be portable on the day when the land is worth too much to live on due to the taxes. If you want to move, you can take your home with you, though not behind a pickup truck; a big semi can move it to another state or just deeper into the country if the city gets too close.
Why not have stained glass in the bathroom? Why not have fancy trim? It barely costs more than the garbage at the big box store, but most do not even know it can be had, and builders will not add the character and detail because their profit margins are so high.
I only have a few screws holding all the trim on the windows and doors. Once I am happy with how they look and the fit, I will add nails to finish them. Would you believe that some of the windows have only 9 screws holding up all the trim? I love Torx head screws.
I used up the last of a very fine and rare Black Walnut and Butternut trim that has a Black Walnut rope laid into the trim and the borders, which we may repaint white again.
Tiger Oak doors for bathroom walls, parts from at least a dozen houses or more, consolidated and married to other parts and pieces for a lifetime ahead. I wonder how many humans will live here before the house is dead in a hundred years or two, depending on how well the owners take care of it and do not abuse it. How many homes are made this way, without a piece of sheetrock or vinyl in this place, without formaldehyde or chemicals that will leach into the owners' lungs like the new trailers sold as homes by most these days? Few builders, nearly no one builds without imports, toxic chemicals leaching from the parts, or danger from the quality of air from the very start. Why not have a healthy house to live in that is also art?
If you are interested in building a home with pure materials, contact us for parts and packages to build homes like no one else can, using parts I have ready and stored in warehouses few can imagine. Please let us know if you need help with the design or just getting the materials; we can help.
If interested in purchasing the Retreat to move to your land or to live here in Luling, at Salvage, Texas, for a year while getting your land ready, it can happen, perhaps. Give me a call.