Tack Room Shelves

 Every project at this little place here seems (to me) to take forever from planning to execution to completion.  Well, I'm happy to say we finally crossed another one off the list.  That project being part of the overall tack room build in my barn and (almost) the final part to be done: a shelf on each of the two long walls.

This is been in the build-plan forever, if you ask me.  Although I do have to admit it wasn't until DH decided we would have a 10' high ceiling (to make it easier by just extending the walls all the way to the rafters when we built the tack room) that I knew for sure there would be room on the walls for the type of shelves I was envisioning.  That being shelves that were at least 18" deep, preferrably 24", and could hold plastic totes of various things that weren't being used on a daily or weekly basis, such as various leather goods (bridles, reins, etc.) that didn't fit any of my current horses or training clients, as well as all the various size and weights of horse turnout blankets in the warm weather months when the horses don't need to wear them.

Since I'm not the head builder, only the grunt laborer when it comes to actually constructing stuff, I had to wait for the tack room shelves to become the top of DH's personal project list once the tack room was finally enclosed. Enclosing the tack room got done close to a year ago at this point.  But, near the end of August, DH indicated that he was about ready to work on the shelves, so we went and bought the needed lumber for them.

My task, before DH built the shelves, was to stain the lumber.  Because I want it to stay fresh-wood looking and not gray over time with age.  And because I find it much neater and easier to stain wood before it's built into something or installed on the walls.

The Saturday of Labor Day weekend, DH got to work on making them into shelves.  For the first shelf, he measured and cut to length the board that was to be the back of the shelf (about 16' long), and attached the end support boards to each end of that.

Then we carefully carried it through the doorway and into the tackroom.  Each of us got on a ladder, carrying the board up with us, and attached it to the long wall, as well as attaching the end boards to the short wall on each end. I should note that before this, we had measured and snapped a chalk line onto the wall so that the shelf would be installed not just at the right height but also level.

Next came the 'front' board for the shelf, which we screwed to the two end boards, then added three support boards spaced 4' apart running between the front and back 16' boards.  Once that was done, each of the five support boards (two ends plus three in the middle) got an angled brace attaching it to the wall.

I really like how the braces turned out; I had been afraid they would extend really far down the wall and look funky.  Originally DH had planned on putting them on a 45-degree angle, but I talked him into something smaller, like 32-degrees I think.  Put that miter saw to good use, LOL!

After that we used the table saw to rip a 4' x 8' sheet of half-inch plywood in half the long way, laid the two pieces into the frame we'd just made for the shelf, and our first shelf was complete! DH even put a few things on it that had previously been taking up floor space.  The shelf worked perfectly. And it looks good too!

After a short rest break, we did the second shelf (on the opposite wall) in the same manner.

Back and end boards.

Screwing in the support boards.

The second shelf, finished.

In the week or so since finishing the shelves, I filled them up pretty well with all my totes of horse stuff that have been stacked here and there (mostly in the only unoccupied-by-a-horse stall in the barn).  I'm happy to say that, while there is still room on the shelves (YAY! who wants shelves that don't hold everything they need to?), they are much fuller than DH thought they would be.  He had wanted to do just one shelf and I kept insisting I needed two shelves.

Standing by the door, looking north toward my saddles and bridles.

Standing by my saddles, looking south.

There's still room above each of the 'boarder' saddle racks for a tote belonging to that boarder.  And on the opposite wall, there's room for me to store the stall fans once they get taken down for the winter.

I think my tack room is officially finished now, and I can do the final organization of it.  Feels so good to have this task crossed off the project list.