• Squids@sopuli.xyz
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    10 months ago

    Idk if this is true for the US but where I live in Scandinavia red is a common house colour because historically it was a cheap colour you could get from mixing red ochre and oil, so red barns aren’t uncommon. Then again the US midwest does have a lot of Scandinavian immigrants so it might’ve bled over culturally because there’s lot of farms up there?

    • bayportOP
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      10 months ago

      That’s a pretty good hypothesis 🤔

    • Rococosocialist@lemmygrad.ml
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      10 months ago

      Red is the traditional color of painted wooden structures pretty much everywhere, think of Chinese temples for example. Black tar is another common one. Cave paintings typically used red too.

    • R0cket_M00se@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Not sure about the chemical properties but I was always told they were red because that was the first color paint to be mass produced cheap enough for farmers to be able to coat their barns in.