Countertops in Wills Point, TX

William Wills came through around 1848. The town itself took shape in 1873 when the Texas and Pacific built its line, and on July 21, 1884 Wills Point became the first community in Van Zandt County to incorporate. By 1896 it had an opera house, three public schools, cotton gins and a newspaper. The brick streets downtown were laid in the 1920s and are still there, the Bluebird Festival has been held on them every spring since 1994, and the Rose Monument marks the entrance to the historic district. Twenty historical markers, the White Rose and Jones cemeteries and Bruce Park fill out the rest of it. The 2020 census counted 3,747 people. U.S. 80 and State Highway 64 carry the traffic, with I-20 a short drive south and Van Zandt County Regional Airport at the edge of town.

The housing follows that timeline. The original grid along the railroad corridor holds the oldest stock, frame houses and bungalows, most on pier and beam over a crawlspace. A ring of mid-century ranch houses came later, and beyond the city limits it turns to acreage: ranchettes and country homesteads on gravel drives. Only a handful of registered HOAs exist here, with Willow Lake Estates, Town North Estates and High Point Lake Estates among the newer named additions.

Pier and beam is the flooring story in Wills Point. A crawlspace in a humid subtropical climate, this town has recorded 115 degrees and three below zero, keeps moisture under the deck year round, and a century of that leaves joists that deflect, decking that squeaks and rooms that slope an inch corner to corner. We get under the house and look before we quote. Old one-by plank subfloor almost always needs an underlayment before vinyl plank goes over it, or every seam between boards eventually reads through the finished surface.

The other thing we find here that we almost never find in a new suburb is original hardwood hiding under wall-to-wall carpet. On a 1910s or 1920s Wills Point house it is worth pulling a corner back in a closet before you decide anything. Estimates are free and we bring samples to the house.