Terrell.

Terrell is one of the older towns on our map and it has the housing stock to match. There is genuine period architecture near the center, decades of mid century building around it, and newer construction out toward the highway. It is a working town with a long history rather than a recent subdivision, and that makes the remodeling work here more interesting and less predictable than in the new growth corridors.

Older houses need a contractor who opens a wall expecting to find something. Additions built by previous owners, plumbing and wiring from several different eras, floors that have been covered over two or three times, and foundations that have been moving on Blackland clay for the better part of a century. We quote what we can see and we say plainly when something cannot be known until demolition, rather than writing an optimistic number and recovering it later through change orders. Where there is original material worth keeping we would rather restore it than tear it out.