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.
This place is going to be next to a big garden. It’s going to have rakes and shovels and buckets and axes, chainsaws and spading forks. And seeds and manure and peat moss and trowels. And maybe chickens. I say it’s a barn and I say the hell with it.
