my castle, apart from the hacked ice to replace windows, all of it was mined and cooked legitimately.
and here's my first house on that server, which has been creepered many times, burned down, rebuilt, and burned down again, then rebuilt with what materials I had. Don't make a wooden house then use flint and steel to destroy the items you don't want, seriously, bad stuff happens. also, what's left of the mountain, half of it being gone from mining the stone for said castle. netherrack replacing where the burning trees used to be.
This is my normal house to use:
and this is one of the tunnels connecting my houses, which I spend a lot of time in.
Edit: oh, and my little cottage: