Denton County sells more horses than all but one county in Texas, and most of the farms around here run under fifty acres. Small acreage, real animals, and a building that has to earn its footprint.
Here is a number most people who live here have never seen. Denton County ranks second in Texas and tenth in the entire country for the market value of horses sold, on an inventory of better than nine thousand head. This is genuinely horse country, and Justin sits in the working part of it.
What makes it different from ranch country further west is scale. Around eight in ten farms in this county run under fifty acres. These are not thousand-acre operations with a barn already standing. They are five, ten and twenty acre places where the tack lives in a garage and the hay is under a tarp.
The town's own zoning writes it in. Justin's residential estate district exists for larger tracts and says outright that they may run as smaller homestead farms. So we build for that: a barn that handles animals and equipment on acreage that has to work hard for its size.
Justin is an 1887 grid, a wave of new rooftops, and open county land. Each one is a different siting problem.
The original plat from 1887, still the layout on the city's zoning maps. Roughly 300-foot blocks, lots near 7,800 square feet, and working alleys behind them. Tight for a side-yard approach, but that rear alley is often the easiest access we get anywhere in town.
Timberbrook along FM 156, Treeline south of FM 407 with a couple thousand homes coming, Wildflower Ranch. Garages already full on delivery day. Here the limit is the code's lot-coverage percentage, not the yard.
Outside city limits, Denton County has no zoning, but it does require a development permit for improvements, with a site plan showing how far the building sits from at least two property lines, plus your septic paperwork. Different desk, different forms.
The county adopted an entirely new development code in January 2025, so anything you read online about Justin setbacks from before then may be stale. Confirm with City of Justin Development Services on North College, or with Denton County Development Services on Morse Street if you are outside the line. We handle the submission either way.
A barn that stores animals' feed is a different machine from a barn that stores a mower. Hay stacked without airflow heats. Leather in still, humid air mildews through August. Grain in anything a rodent can chew is grain you are buying twice.
So the loft gets vented, through cupolas or a ridge and soffit run, and the hay stacks off the deck rather than flat on it. Feed goes into sealed containment away from damp. Tack gets a dry wall with air moving past it. The partitions that separate those three go in while we are framing, which costs a fraction of what retrofitting them later does.
Then the boring part that matters most: door height and approach. A trailer needs clearance a garden shed never contemplates, and the turn from the drive onto the pad decides more than the floor plan does. Bring us the tallest thing you own.
Same family crew, same materials. Access decides which route is open.
We bring lumber down the drive and build where it stands. The answer for oversized barns, gates and cattle guards, low limbs, and pads a trailer cannot reach.
Arrives complete and set the same day. Strong option off an Old Town alley or a wide rural drive with room to turn.
Gate width, alley width, overhead clearance and turning room at the pad. Four measurements and we can tell you which is even possible.
Family owned and built to one standard, whether it is a 10x12 garden shed or a 16x32 barn.
Built to the size, siding and color you choose.
Gambrel roof, real loft overhead, and the vented space hay actually needs. The default on horse property. Starts at $2,860.
Straight gable and the most storage per dollar. What most of the new-subdivision orders end up being. Starts at $2,384.
Windows, trim and a footprint that suits an Old Town back lot rather than a pasture. Starts at $3,393.
Partitioned interiors, vented lofts, wider doors, workbench walls and electrical rough-in. Tell us what lives in it and we frame around that.
| Size | Price |
|---|---|
| 8x8 | $2,384 |
| 10x12 | $3,900 |
| 12x16 | $5,376 |
| 12x24 | $7,200 |
| 12x32 | $9,200 |
| Size | Price |
|---|---|
| 8x8 | $2,860 |
| 10x12 | $4,622 |
| 12x16 | $6,380 |
| 12x24 | $8,136 |
| 16x32 | $14,776 |
| Size | Price |
|---|---|
| 8x10 | $3,393 |
| 10x12 | $4,722 |
| 12x16 | $6,496 |
| 12x20 | $7,370 |
| 12x24 | $8,951 |
Two opposite foundation problems share this town. Most of Justin sits on Slidell and Sanger clays, which the soil survey rates at the very top of the shrink-swell scale. They swell shut after rain and shear open in a dry August. On the rises you get the reverse, gravelly clay loam sitting shallow over limestone, where the trouble is hitting rock rather than movement.
There is a nice footnote in that. The Department of Agriculture named an actual soil series after this town, Justin fine sandy loam. It is a minor unit right at the city, but the dirt here does carry the name.
Above ground it is hail and heat. Justin recorded a 3.40 inch stone in April 2024, and April and May are the peak severe months across the county. Summers average better than twenty days at or above a hundred, with roughly thirty-seven inches of rain arriving mostly in bursts. We anchor for wind, roof for hail, and match the foundation to whichever ground you actually have.
Justin itself, Ponder to the northwest, Northlake to the east, the Argyle horse properties, and the old Drop community out toward the county road. If your place runs off FM 156 or FM 407, you are in our normal run.
Worth saying that Northwest ISD runs its whole district office out of Justin on Texan Drive, which is a fair sign of where the growth is pointed. Neighboring towns have their own pages. Further east toward the university, see Denton sheds. Southwest into Tarrant County, Haslet covers that ground. Northwest into Wise County, try Rhome.
Dry air, eye-level racks and a wall that stays clear of damp. The single most common reason a horse owner calls us.
Vented loft above, sealed and chew-resistant containment below, both off the ground.
Door height and turning room drive this, not square footage.
Show equipment, clippers, stands and feed for project animals, kept clean and in one place.
Timberbrook and Treeline garages fill on move-in week. Mowers, bikes and bins move out to the yard.
Bench, compressor and lighting, insulated enough to be usable in July.
What lives inside, how the drive or alley runs, and whether you are inside city limits or out in the county.
A real number with options priced separately. Nothing appears later that was not on the quote.
For city lots we assemble the stamped survey package with the three setback dimensions. In the county we sort the development permit and septic clearances.
Framed on your place or delivered and set. We clean up behind ourselves before we pull out.
Usually, and the alley is why. Justin's original 1887 plat laid out roughly 300-foot blocks with alleys running behind them, so a lot of the older lots have rear access that newer subdivisions never got. That opens up delivery on properties where the side yard would never allow it. Send us the alley width and any low limbs or meter poles along it and we will tell you what will make the turn.
It will if the building is just set on the dirt. Justin sits on the Grand Prairie side of the county line, on Slidell and Sanger clays that the soil survey rates at the top of the shrink-swell scale. Those soils swell shut after rain and shear open in a dry summer. We prepare and level the pad, set runners so water drains away instead of standing underneath, and pier where the movement warrants it.
The new code caps total lot coverage rather than shed size alone, and everything on the lot counts toward it. Low-density single family runs a 10,000 square foot minimum lot at sixty-five percent coverage, while the estate district sits at one acre and thirty-five percent. Subtract the house and garage footprint first, then size the building from what is left. Confirm your district with the city.
April 1st of 2024 put a 3.40 inch stone on the ground here, and the storm record shows 2.75 inch hail in 2017 and again back in 1998. So this is not a hypothetical specification. We roof with composition shingles over solid decking or with rated metal, framed on sixteen-inch centers so the deck has real backing behind it. Tell us if your insurer wants a particular rating and we will build to it.
Four things, none of them cosmetic. Door height and width sized to a trailer rather than a mower. Floor loading that will carry stacked feed and hay. Ventilation that moves air through the loft so hay does not heat and leather does not mildew. And sealed, chew-resistant feed containment, because rodents find grain faster than anything else on the property. We frame all four in rather than bolting them on.
More than most towns nearby. Anything at or above 120 square feet needs a permit, and the application wants a stamped survey with three dimensions labeled: house to the proposed building, building to the side property line, and building to the rear. Elevations and a bracing plan go with it, and the city asks for at least ten working days to review. We assemble that package and submit it.
Tell us the acreage, what lives in the building and how the drive or alley runs to the pad. You get a written number with the options priced separately. Financing runs with no payments for the first 90 days, subject to credit approval.
Mon–Fri 7:30am–5:30pm
Sat 9am–1pm
Fort Worth Shed-Design Center
14135 US-287, Fort Worth TX 76179