The Outcome of making the Ultimate or Ideal South Texas home can no doubt be achieved in several different ways. We take a dual approach that favors two familiar styles, Eastern Mediterranean and Midwestern Ranch. One stresses spacial layout with form and function, while the other, surface availabilities and conditioning for the elements. Combining aspects of each in an artistic and practical way is the challenge. Any design should adapt well to it’s surroundings, make use of available materials and be eye pleasing inside and out. It should, in addition to achieving spacial needs, take into account the ability to sustain comfort at a reasonable cost.

DESIGN CONCEPT

A midwestern ranch design projects several distinct elements that fuse it to the surrounding environment. The most striking elements are: 1) A low roof pitch over single floor or double floor. 2) Deep covered patios on at least two sides of the structure. 3) Short stone base walls along the entire a perimeter wall and at column bases. 4) Wood or plastered walls above the stone base or column. 5) An open first floor layout with divisions for public, service and sleeping courters well defined. Exterior walls and attached windows appear dense and thick. Stucco, stone and wood used in combinations on the exterior wall surfaces are typical of the Midwestern Ranch design as are extended eaves. The original focus was to produce a strong, secure andcomfortable dwelling that could withstand high winds, hots summers and cold winters. Local river stone and mortar for the foundation and low level exterior walls, wood planking for walls, floors and ceilings and slate for roofs were commonplace while extended eaves reduced rain penetration and offered greater shading for well utilized outdoor spaces.

The Eastern Mediterranean look, where exposed natural stone is replaced by more brick covered stucco, clay tile roofs instead of slate and several floor levels instead of a single floor. Where hip roofs dominate a ranch style, flat roofs are more commonly mixed with hips and gables for an eastern mediterrain home. Roof tops and often curved balcony terraces allow for sunning and secure outdooring. Angular and curved geometric shapes characterize this style that is typically dressed in soft pastel colors and white.

Both Midwestern Ranch and Mediterranean incorporate a relatively low roof pitch to minimize lumber needs and to enable the overhanging eave to extend further from the exterior walls. It is surprising to see many large new homes being built with short eaves that reduce soffit plywood and the length of roof rafters but end up giving the home an apartment look. An extended eave also enhances the silhouette, giving the elevation some horizontal dimension and an out of the box look. Ask your home designer more about these and other exterior design styles that acheive both asthetic and functional goals.

EXTERIOR FINISHES

One can achieve these exterior appearances with a number of reasonably priced materials that don’t encompass expensive transportation costs. (I recall an order of debarked round pine logs from New Mexico that only cost $285 but the shipping amounted to over $270.)

Limestone, from the Texas Hill Country, is a great choice for exterior stone work. It comes in various finishes from rough, to matt, to honed. As a stone it’s not as heavy as granite or other marbles. It can be used for exterior flooring or as a wainscot starter wall surface. It is hard to stain, is non-slip in the honed version and because it is light in color it can be walked on with bare feet on a hot day. Because it is formed on former sea beds you can find fossils of sea creatures on it’s surface.

Synthetic stone products are excellent alternatives to natural stones. They are often produced using recycled materials, crushed stone waist and fillers that minimize weight and add some insulating qualities to this class of surface. These products are built to last and incur less transportation costs. They are more quickly assembled verses natural stone and therefore consume less labor costs to install. Styles are endless and include some resembling hard to find stones. There is however, nothing available for floor surfaces in this category. Many colors and shapes are available for walls and are on display at local showrooms such as Speculas in Pharr, a leading distributor of stucco & other exterior home surface products in our area.

Another exterior surface widely used in both the Mediterranean and the Midwestern home is wall plastered stucco. Whereas traditionally applied stucco is on the wane, there is a growing surge in the popularity of the EFIS stucco process that relies on lightweight polystyrene foam as a base and a elastic cement/sand/color compound as a finish surface. It is an exterior building surface that has achieved wide acceptance that you can find on most commercial buildings erected in the last ten years. A majority of stucco homes now being built favor it (the most common U. S. brand is Dryvit) over traditional stucco because of it’s enhanced insulating qualities, ease and speed of installation, resistance to rust and it’s better ability to reduce air draft penetration. It too comes in an array of colors and textures.

Red Cedar is the preferred choice for exterior wood applications. It is lightweight when compared to other soft and hard woods. The resins of Red Cedar also serve as an almost permanent insect repellent. Many find cedar too splintered to use on walls. Cedar planks come one side roughly sanded, the other side moderate. You can however achieve a longer lasting exterior finish on cedar if you sand it down finer for an unsplintering wall finish. Cedar can also be found as plywood sheeting used for exterior ceilings. You should not sand veneered cedar since the cedar ply is much to thin to tolerate sanding.

I prefer a paint/stain to a typical painted finish to cover cedar. A paint/stain is transparent enough to see the attractive wood features but strong enough to protect the wood for a long period of time. If it comes blended with sealer it will not fade, discolor or darken for many years.

For color selections it is safe to pick colors named for the woods they will be used on. For red cedar I pick “Red Cedar” Paint Stain because it is formulated to make it’s best appearance on cedar and since it is the natural color of the wood it will take longer to discolor verses a stain that was really meant for another wood species.

Cedar post and beam lumber is available in stock sizes that can be used to decorate the exterior. It weathers much better than similar sized decorative pine lumber of the same dimensions. While knotted pine looks great for a year or two, it quickly begins to degenerate and darken, even with standard maintenance care. Cedar, although a great weather beater, is best used where there is some protection from the sun, wind and rain if you want it to look good for decades.