I'm planning to insulate and panel the walls of an unfinished garage workshop, and would like to use wooden boards instead of sheetrock or other alternatives. I'm thinking 4" wide boards, 1/2" thick, of various lengths in horizontal rows, maybe a mix of species or different stains for appearance. My question is: what kinds of wood are most suitable?
Because this is a garage and not a living room, my main concerns are practical, not about appearance. I want to avoid wood that is likely to crack or warp with the seasons. (I am in Maine and the seasonal changes in climate are pretty dramatic.) Ease of installation, durability, strength, any insulating properties, could also be good to know. I'm not too concerned about the differences in appearance.
Cost is not a major concern, because I intend to cut the trees and saw them into boards myself. For softwoods I have access to pine, spruce, and fir in abundance, maybe some cedar or hemlock. For hardwoods, I'd probably use less-valuable species like beech, birch, popple, ash, soft maple, apple, etc. We do have oak and hard maple in our woods, but my intuition is that these furniture-grade woods should be saved for more worthy applications.