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户外厕所正流行 Outhouses Are in Fashion
What 19th-century housewife could have guessed that her family's unpleasant but necessary "little shack out back," otherwise known as the outhouse, would function as a piece of kitschy yard art 100 years later?1 The outhouse seems to have emerged from the chronicles of history smelling like a rose.2 Once purely utilitarian and slightly distasteful
devices, outhouses are an icon of the rustic life our grandparents and
great-grandparents endured.3
Today, many people convert old outhouses into lawn with a special style;
some even go so far as to build new outhouses for display or, in rare
cases, for actual use. It's wonderful to see this forgotten piece of
history come back again. Outhouses represent something more than just
a place of relief. They are the echoes of a time long past, and a reminder
to appreciate what we have. Yard art Outhouse crafts have become quite popular in the last decade. Today, in celebration of this artifact5, people decorate and paint outhouses, plant flowers in them or use them for garden-tool storage. As most people think, outhouses are aesthetically6 pleasing to look at, having a shape that just catches the eye. It's a little country. It's a little history. It's a little unique. It just seems that all wrapped into one package7. A common addition to a decorated outhouse is a carved-out moon or star on the door, designs that were often seen when outhouses were in common use.8 Build your own Nowadays, there are a lot of companies selling outhouse kits9 you may need, which as they claim "are great for yard or garden decoration, and fully operational10" Each kit comes with step-by-step instructions, and in fact what you need for work is solely a power drill and a hammer. With them, you can create blue pine outhouses, cedar outhouses or an antique wood outhouse. If you decide to build an outhouse that will actually be used, carefully evaluate placement. In the past, outhouses were often built near chicken coops so the stronger smell that emanated from the chickens could "mask" the unpleasant fumes of the outhouses.11 Most outhouses often are four-feet square by seven-feet tall. They would be placed anywhere from 50 to 150 feet away from the main house. Political background Outhouses have been involved with political issues. Attempting to pull the U.S. out of the Great Depression, FDR directed his Works Progress Administration,12 which put many Americans to work at a time when there was no work, to build roads, schools, sidewalks and other public facilities, including outhouses. The thousands of government-built outhouses were admired for their sturdy13 construction, while homemade shack could be easily toppled by errant boys, or were so flimsily built that a person could throw a cat through them.14 Most families still relied on 'outside facilities' In fact three-man teams would spend an average of 20 hours constructing each outhouse. If possible, farm families would only pay for materials while the WPA supplied the free labor. These were considered "fancy15 outhouses"because they had cement floors and ventilation shafts.16 Of course, these "fancy outhouses"were much more sanitary. Most outhouses were notorious for spreading disease, contaminating wells and breeding worms. "By building modern outhouses with roofs that wouldn't leak and cement floors that worms couldn't penetrate," some pointed out, "the WPA prevented a great deal of suffering and helped bring rural America into modern times." Anyway, whether you get the outhouse on your own or with the government's help, you make it after all, don't you? And building an outhouse is still in season17, which certainly gives you something to think about.
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