One of our slowest projects has been the barn renovation. When we moved in the barn was full of someone else’s junk (rather than our own junk) and only had two stalls that were configured for the last owner’s goats. We didn’t plan on horses at first, but once we had them it became clear space was inadequate.
The first winter we put up some outside barriers to keep the stalls dry for the two horses we had. This was temporary and after adding Sky we decided we needed to revise the stalls making it more like an actual stable.
Our work started last fall with demolishing the stalls and pass through and diving them into three separate stalls with divider walls. We had come up with some used steel feeders from a friend and hung one in the center stall. Over the winter we only had the center stall with an opening into the barn – the other two openings directly into the paddock.
This spring we finished up the stall fronts, having a gate into each stall from the center of the barn, lighting, power, and feeders in all three. We took some gravel and leveled out the stalls under the stall mats for more comfortable footing.
Our next step would be to finish the outside wall and doors. We came across some old used stall doors to set-up sliding doors outside so we can contain the horses in a stall if we needed to. These are old and super heavy but will look nice when we clean them up and get them hung.
After that, we need to get a French drain installed in the paddock with new layers of gravel, sand, and hog fuel (bark) as well as rebuild the fence that the tree branches and my poor tractor driving still took out over the winter.