Before indoor plumbing, outhouses were built to address a basic need for families. Wade and Connie Rabun are passing down the adventure of using an outhouse to their daughters.

The Rabuns, who have indoor plumbing, have built outhouses on their family farm for convenience when working outdoors.

Materials for an outhouse include wood for the walls, roof, partial floor, bench and door; a heavy spring for the door; railroad ties for the foundation and metal for the roof. These materials can be found at your local lumber and hardware stores.

Construct a small building on skids. Put on metal roof at a slant to let the water run off when it rains. Inside the building, add a bench, cutting a hole the size of a toilet seat. Attach the door with the heavy spring.

Select a site that is built up, or higher than the ground around it.

“You want to build them up on a high spot, so the rain water will run away from the hole,” explained Wade. “Depending on where you’re at, if your hard pan is up close to the top of the ground, it may hold a little water in it from time to time if it’s been really wet. If you have deep topsoil, it will stay pretty dry.”

Dig a six to eight-foot hole, place the railroad ties for the frame, and push the building on top.

“If it’s eight feet, you’re not going to have any problems,” said Connie.

Finally, build up the dirt back around it, so that water or animals cannot get into the hole.

“Put a little lime in them, and they are basically maintenance free,” said Wade.

The outhouse will need to be moved to a new location as usage demands.

“They need to be moved every couple of years, if you use them all the time,” said Wade.

Connie’s common sense advice regarding the move: “Use the dirt dug from the new holes to refill the old holes.”

The number of outhouses depends on the supplies available and the size of the household.

The Rabuns have several household members, mostly female, so they built a one-holer for men and a two-holer for women.

Of course, any outhouse can be altered to fit personal needs and preferences.

For example, Connie asked her husband to build the women’s outhouses bigger, because she often has to assist younger family members in the outhouse.

In addition, Connie and her daughters have decorated their outhouses.

“Our oldest daughter put in a flower bed around the outhouses. She put in a sink and planted flowers around it, so we could have a sink out by the outhouse,” laughed Connie. “We have nice outhouses. We put in linoleum, painted flowers and have a mirror in them.”

For each outhouse hole, there is hand sanitizer and two ice cream-style buckets, one that holds the toilet paper and another that holds the lime.

“We put a cup of lime down the hole every week, so that there will be no smell,” said Connie.

To make it even more comfortable, they put a toilet seat and cover over the hole and added a bucket below.

“We cut the bottom out of 5-gallon bucket and nailed it to the seat to direct the flow and keep the wood from getting wet and rotting,” explained Connie.

Howell County News publisher Kim Wehmer added that some military-style outhouses are built differently.

“In Somalia, where the ground was mostly sand, the outhouses had metal half-barrels under each seat,” she said. “At the back of the outhouse was a hinged door running the length of the house so you could remove the barrels.”

For sanitation, Wehmer said the barrels were removed every few days, depending on use, with liquid drained and buried, while the solid waste was burned in the metal barrel. The barrels were then obviously put back into the outhouse.

“The Ozarks’ method of using lime is certainly less labor-intensive,” said Wehmer.