#barn?

What’s a Barn?

We’re going to build two buildings on our land, a house and a…another building.

In the other building will be a one-car garage, a woodshop, a greenhouse, and work and storage space for gardening and garden tools—all on the first floor, and my office and a guest bedroom and bathroom on the second.

When I showed the head of the town’s conservation commission where the building would go, I pointed to a rectangle of stakes in the ground and said, “That’s where we’re putting the barn.”

“Whoa! A barn? What kind of animals will you have?” He was taken a little aback at what had suddenly become an agricultural enterprise on a home site.

“Animals?” I said. “No animals. Maybe a dog. Maybe a few chickens.”

That relieved him and nothing more was said. But I started questioning what I’d been calling this other building. “Outbuilding” sounds like a word in a zoning document. “Dependency” has a nice twee Jane Austen ring. “Office” and “garage” are insufficient for the other, more rugged uses. “Shop” or “Workshop” conjure up plaid-shirt wearing, pipe-smoking hobbyists—clearly unacceptable.