Why is the standard/historic color of a barn red?

Question

We are just wondering why it was standard/normal to have a red barn and a white house.

Answer 1

Back in the day red and white paint was inexpensive. (cksq)

Answer 2

Because red paint used to be very cheap (just a varnish with iron oxide in it). Traveling salesmen found farmers would buy it for that reason. The funny thing though was that as more farms were started, the red paint became alot more expensive due to supply shortages. Pretty good deal for the salesmen.

For the white, basic good commercial exterior paint is white when the chemicals are mixed. Originally, that was how it was sold...only. So that's what houses were painted.

Tinting the paint started later (probably by the insistence of the women in the households), more colors were eventually produced.

Answer 3

Centuries ago, European farmers would seal the wood on their barns with an oil, often linseed oil -- a tawny-colored oil derived from the seed of the flax plant. They would paint their barns with a linseed-oil mixture, often consisting of additions such as milk and lime. The combination produced a long-lasting paint that dried and hardened quickly.Wealthy farmers added blood from a recent slaughter to the oil mixture. As the paint dried, it turned from a bright red to a darker, burnt red.
Farmers added ferrous oxide, otherwise known as rust, to the oil mixture. Rust was plentiful on farms and is a poison to many fungi, including mold and moss, which were known to grown on barns. These fungi would trap moisture in the wood, increasing decay.

Answer 4

Centuries ago, European farmers would seal the wood on their barns with an oil, often linseed oil -- a tawny-colored oil derived from the seed of the flax plant. They would paint their barns with a linseed-oil mixture, often consisting of additions such as milk and lime. The combination produced a long-lasting paint that dried and hardened quickly.

In historically accurate terms, "barn red" is not the bright, fire-engine red that we often see today, but more of a burnt-orange red.

Farmers added ferrous oxide, otherwise known as rust, to the oil mixture. Rust was plentiful on farms and is a poison to many fungi, including mold and moss, which were known to grown on barns. These fungi would trap moisture in the wood, increasing decay.

As European settlers crossed over to America, they brought with them the tradition of red barns. In the mid to late 1800s, as paints began to be produced with chemical pigments, red paint was the most inexpensive to buy.

Red was the color of favor until whitewash became cheaper, at which point white barns began to spring up.

Answer 5

It was the easiest and cheapest color of paint to make. Houses were usuallly whitewashed. The barn wouldn't be, because you would do it over and over due to having animals and hay and such in the barn.

Answer 6

I love this question. I typed "history of red barns" into the yahoo search engine and found this article. Here's the answer:


"Dropping iron scraps into a barrel of buttermilk transformed it into an inexpensive and easy red paint," she discovered. "Farmers thought red absorbed the heat in the winter and kept the dairy cows warm. Also, red was thought to be neighborly and friendly."

Answer 7

for some reason, red was always the cheapest paint and farmers needed alot to cover a barn.

Answer 8

So the cows would know where to go at night.