All peasant farmsteads had many adjacent buildings, all of which had their own use. There were often a lot of storage buildings in the grounds, and it was said that the number of storage buildings was directly linked with the wealth of a house.

In a peasant farmstead, the buildings were positioned according to the terrain and using its contours to an advantage. The building material came from nearby woods and a new storage building was usually designed and built by the farm's own people. The traditions and skills of building went from father to son, even though small changes to the exterior of the storage buildings could be made during decades and centuries. Sometimes the building of a storage building could be commissioned from a travelling carpenter. This could lead to the use of new or different building techniques or stylistic influences.

The old log buildings of the countryside have come to the end of their road, at least where their building material is concerned. The buildings that have survived to our times are mainly from the 19th and 20th centuries. Some individual buildings have even survived from the 17th and 18th centuries. The local arts-and-crafts museums of Jämsä, Jämsänkoski and Kuorevesi are the best places to get to know the building techniques used by peasants in the olden days.