More Barn Finishing Progress

You'd think  I had thought, back in the Spring when we were working on putting up the tack room walls and I was staining boards for paneling the inside walls, that the tack room would be finished and fully functional by the end of the Summer.  I mean, we spent a half of a Saturday putting up paneling and got an entire wall done.  So with just three more walls and the ceiling to do, we'd need what? another couple of Saturdays?

Ha!  Not so.  (Well, maybe if we'd kept at it rather than taking 'breaks' for weeks at a time. . . DH's typical start-stop-start-stop method when he's not super interested in a project or he's feeling unsure how to do it. . .)

Here we are, fully five months from when that first wall got done, four months since the ceiling was installed, and my tack room is still under construction.  Yes, it is further along, and yes, it's about two steps from being totally done, but come on!  Something that really bugs me is disorganization, and with moving things here and there in the tack room (and/or empty stalls) during this construction phase so that there's room to work on the wall of the moment/week/month, the equipment I use on a daily basis for working and/or grooming horses has been anything but in a consistent neat spot where I can quickly retrieve it when needed.

Since I try to keep most grievances offline, let me refocus this post.  Here is what we have gotten done! *insert big smiley face here, LOL*

All four walls are paneled and trimmed!  Toad helped DH with putting up the paneling on the fourth wall (the one DH put off the longest because it also includes plumbing).  At 11, Toad is sorta interested in building/making stuff, so he tried to listen to DH's lesson in leveling the starter board at the bottom but really liked the snapping into place (and holding while DH nailed in) the tongue and groove boards above that one.  Together, they got half of the wall paneled in a little over an hour.

Before we put up the remainder of the paneling, DH stubbed in the hot and cold water faucets that are on the feed room side of that wall (only the cold is operational for now). And, as you can see, we had by then put up the plywood that is the 'finished wall' on the feed room side.

Then, while he finished installing the rest of the knotty pine in the tack room, I spray painted the plywood in the faucet area of the feed room with a sealant.  Four coats seems like it's well protected against any errant spraying of water when using the faucets/emptying the hose.

Once the wall was finished inside the tack room, there was another pause while we had a debate about trim.  Or, rather, I wanted a less easy for DH to make (slap together) style of trim and we took about a two week break. . . Until he decided my idea was feasible and not totally outrageously expensive to buy, and stopped at Home Depot to buy a few sticks of quarter round for me to stain. (First, he had to try making quarter round out of some scrap lumber we had, but didn't have the right router bit or jig or patience for it to work.  Then he decided to give in and buy some since I was standing adamant on not having 'square edged'--as I referred to it--trim.)

Last weekend, we installed the quarter round at the ceiling/wall joints and at the corners of all four walls inside the tack room.

He had wanted to go with some ripped two by fours or leftover paneling pieces and use those as trim in the joints.  I felt that would 'box in' the corners and ceiling visually and draw your eye to those areas, when all I wanted to do was 'hide' those rough edges where walls and ceiling met together and soften the joints of the room.  Hence the necessity of using quarter round.  

Once it was all in place, DH did admit it looked nice, even if it wasn't his first choice (the easier--slapping up square boards--way out).

With the interior of the tack room trimmed out (except around the door frame, which DH forgot to cut boards for when he was cutting other trim pieces for me to stain last weekend), we spent a quick half hour or so on Sunday after church and before the Lions game putting up the trim on the corner where the aisle wall boards meet the feed room plywood.  So now that looks nice too.

 

There are just a few things left for DH to do in the tack room.  

• finish the plumbing for the sink and the on-demand water heater,
• install the sink 
• install the heat exchanger he bought at auction last month for heating the tack room (the barn has PEX tubing running to it underground from the outdoor wood boiler; installed back in 2007 when we installed the wood boiler for heating our house and planning to someday have a tack room that needed to be kept above freezing), 
• hook up the above sink light and counter level electrical outlet on that last wall, 
• install the countertop (I bought at a garage sale this summer for $4!) and cabinet above it (I bought at Habitat Restore in early spring for $40),
• install the door trim on both the tack room side and the aisle sides of the door.

Really all that stuff is 5-30 minute tasks and could be knocked out in one afternoon with time to spare.  Not like it takes a month of Saturdays committed to it. (Fingers crossed it won't be a month of Saturdays from now. . .)

Once a few of those are done--like the heat exchanger, sink and counter, I can get an accurate idea of how much space into the room those things take up and then I will be ready to put up the wall mounted saddle racks and bridle brackets (I don't want to put them up, have them be too crowded, especially near the heat source, and have to move them, thus leaving holes in my beautiful paneling where they had been screwed into place).  

I'm getting really anxious to move everything in and get stuff put where it will 'live' in an organized and easily used manner.  Plus, with all the extras out of the empty stalls (tack, tools, totes of winter blankets in the off season), I can start advertising for another boarder or two and get my barn fully occupied at last.