Outbuilding - Greene County, Virginia 

Over the years outbuildings have been an important fixture of rural homesteads and farms. There were smokehouses for preparing and storing meat, granaries to hold grain and feed, dairies for milk, ice houses, dovecotes, chicken coops,  laundries and of course privies. Today, many of these small buildings have fallen into disuse as rural life has adjusted to the modern world.

Barns, complex and expensive were likely to have been built to a proven and successful pattern. Small outbuildings however, were often hastily constructed from whatever materials were at hand. The "grass-roots" vernacular architecture of outbuildings is as individual as the farmers who built them.

In this area of central Virginia, white outbuildings are not as common as one might think. Most surviving outbuildings are a natural weathered gray, or painted a dark color. At one time whitewash was a practical and inexpensive way of protecting and beautifying rural structures. Does anyone still use whitewash?

"Saturday morning was come, and all the summer world was bright and fresh, and brimming with life. There was a song in every heart; and if the heart was young, the music issued at the lips. There was cheer in every face and a spring in every step.

"Tom appeared on the sidewalk with a bucket of whitewash and a long-handled brush. He surveyed the fence and all gladness left him and a deep melancholy settled down upon his spirit. Thirty yards of board fence nine feet high. Life to him seemed hollow, and existence but a burden. Sighing, he dipped his brush and passed it along the topmost plank, repeated the operation; did it again; compared the insignificant whitewashed streak with the far-reaching continent of unwhitewashed fence, and sat down on a tree box discouraged."

Mark Twain - Adventures of Tom Sawyer

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