Mike answers:

You absolutely can frame a house with untreated lumber. They don’t use treated stuff when they frame the house typically. One thing you might want to be cautious of is the fact that your recently cut lumber may warp. The untreated framing wood you buy at your local home improvement store is all center cut and is kiln dried to remove the moisture. As that moisture comes out of the wood you may experience warping in all that newly cut lumber. I commend you on taking the time to make that tree into useful materials though.

Mike answers:

Most lumber is “environmentally friendly” nowadays. Instead of cutting down old growth forests, trees are “harvested” from fast growing trees that have been planted for that purpose by lumber companies. The downside to that is the fast growing lumber is terrible compared to the older stuff.

How much lumber you need depends on the layout of your house. A rule of thumb is one stud for every foot of wall. This allows for doubling up studs for headers, blocking, corners, etc. Take your house plan to a lumber yard and they can do a take off and generate a materials list. They can also give you a cost on the material.

For the roof, it depends on what shingles you choose, the pitch, the configuration (valleys, chimneys, etc.). Figure on $100-150/square (100 sq. Ft.) of roof. Keep in mind that 100 square feet of roof does not equal 100 square feet of floor plan. Your roof will have more, and the steeper the pitch the more shingles will be needed.

Contact some local contractors to get more accurate figures. Hope this helps.

Mike answers:

Home Depot. Always.

Mike answers:

I build by the IRC 2006 in Houston, and without looking it up I believe we use 2×12 #2 16″ on center. Our garages are 23′ wide. You may also have to look at what is above that. Will there be a second floor? Will there be roof supports sitting on the joists? I have one plan with a roof ridge and two hips supported down to a triple 2×12 beam. Make sure you have an engineer look at your drawings. Good luck.

Mike answers:

Chris, I can figure this out for you but I need more info. What material are you using PT, WRC, or something exotic? 5/4X6 or 1X4? What region of the Country are you in?