Feed and Tack Room

[baymule]

We bought this place in September 2014. I painted the whole interior and laid all new floors before we moved in. Moving day was February 14, 2015 which also happened to be our 19th anniversary.

There was nothing here but a doublewide and 8 acres.

A neighbor volunteered to build a fence to hold the horses and he worked over the months, setting posts until he was tired, then he went home. When he was ready to string wire, DH gave him money to hire day laborers and he finished up just as our son showed up with the horses, just days before we moved.

We had a portable building moved from our land that we sold. It took a bulldozer to drag it to the road because the land was black gooey gumbo clay. That is a 7' steel tank culvert in this picture. The building was loaded up and I followed the truck to our new home and it was unloaded and set up.

We bought a metal carport and had that set up. That necessitated the taking down of 3 trees and getting the stumps ground.

The horses had no barn. Eleven days after we moved in, it snowed. We felt terrible for the poor horses. Over the next few weeks, it stormed, it snowed again and threw in a couple of ice storms for good measure.

 

[baymule]

We needed a barn. I am a scrounger. I had piles of used lumber, reject lumber from Lowes, a pile of treated power poles and used tin. All of this we moved up here.

In December of 2015 we had a barn going up and a new screened 12'x54' porch being built at the same time. We hired the labor to build the barn. It was a couple of local guys, they worked on the weekends and over a few months we went from this:

and this

to this

and this

and this

and finally to this.

 

[baymule]

Our porch was being built at the same time and it turned out beautifully. We love it.

We will be here 3 years in February. During this time, we have cleaned up massive amounts of trash and garbage. We have fenced in the whole place, cross fenced, hung gates, fenced in a garden and worked hard on clearing out briars and brush. We have bought sheep, raised lambs, raised feeder pigs and slaughtered them, filled the freezers with the bounty of the land and our hard work. During this time, DH has had open heart surgery, a 3 way bypass, knee replacement and shoulder replacement surgery, all followed by months and months of therapy.

My saddles, tack and lots of just stuff have been crammed in that portable building all this time. I can get to the back of that building, but I have to turn sideways and step carefully to do it. We have had a couple of starts on the feed and tack room, but now we are on a roll.

We did this in January of 2017, a couple days later DH had shoulder replacement surgery. Start. Stop.

We did this in August 2017. Start. Stop.

 

[baymule]

Well here we are again. We stopped on the Feed and tack room for whatever reason. But we went back to work on it. We got more Tin put up and got the end entirely covered.

DH and I put a couple of sheets up, then he called our friend Robert, who was already on his way over. LOL The three of us worked, measuring, I cut with tin snips and we put the sheets of tin up.

Prince kept coming in, getting in the way, and pawing at the stack of tin. DH chased him out over and over. It was comical watching them. I caught a picture of Prince sneaking back in and DH waiting to spring out and yell at him.

 

[baymule]

On Tuesday, 1-23-2018, we got the frame work built, raised and screwed in place to make the front walls all the way to the rafters.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

YaY!

 

[baymule]

Tomorrow we might get all the tin hung on the outside. We have purchased the wiring and lights needed for the barn, one of our neighbors is going to do the electrical in trade for a pig that we raised for him and his family. I want to get this done so bad!

 

[Beekissed]

Bay, LOVE the use of the old tin...very beautiful look to it. Can't wait to see the finished tack room!

You probably know this, but a few shows on Dr. Pol brings it to my mind...the edges of tin seem to attract horses for some reason...seems they are always getting ripped up on pieces of tin. Any way to cap those edges to prevent that?

 

[baymule]

Haha Bee, we already have the bent corner trim, courtesy of our neighbor Robert, and it was free to him. It is a dark green, should look good with the old tin, huh? We are going to trim around the doors with it, everywhere else, the ends are where the horses can't get to them.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Can't wait to see it all finished!