The horses have the rest of the building, but the tack room is yours. Yes, the whole area must be kept clean – for the health of your animals – but it’s easy to take this to the next level, even though the tack room usually isn’t much more than a utilitarian part of the barn.
Even though most of what’s kept here is for your horses, the tack room is a place where you can draw a balance between style and function. Here are some ideas to prime your imagination.
Separating Spaces
Overall, this building is a home for your horses, so no one expects it to be antiseptically clean. The best way to start, though, is helping with the barriers that keep general dirt and dust out of the tack room. Make sure those exterior doors are sealed with weather stripping, and fix any gaps in the barn walls.
This is an easy task if you’ve opted for horse stable and tack room made from a well-built DIY pre-engineered steel building kit from Miracle Truss®. Wood studs every 24 inches lets you finish the inside exactly as you need it for your horses – then continue on with doors or windows, and even batt-style insulation. You can even install a different type of roofing or siding material on the building so you can match other buildings on your property.
Finish Those Walls
Many horse barn owners only go as far as exposed and unfinished plywood walls. That’s understandable. You need high durability materials there. Horses may not care, but there’s no reason not to take it to the next level in your tack room.
Consider drywall or even paneling for your tack room. Then go for a color punch. You’ll never go wrong with a soothing light grey – but you can also make a bold statement with green or even navy. Texture makes for an interesting choice in this room. There’s always paneling, but you can also opt for bead board. That might fit your budget better, as well. It’s often considerably less in cost than drywall.
Vertical Organization
It makes sense to store in bins, but that also makes it difficult to find things when you’re in a hurry – even if you’re a master at labeling those bins. This is where putting your walls to work can make all the difference.
Hanging items on the wall has two excellent benefits – storage and decoration. Mount sheets of pegboard to the wall, and then frame them with inexpensive lumber. Pegboard hardware is easy to find and costs very little, so you can create your own organization.
Create another area in the tack room where you can mount Velcro. It’s an easy way to store fly masks, as well as bell and tendon boots.
More on tack room tips in part two. Meanwhile, check out our gallery of DIY metal agricultural buildings here.
