Updates! August 2013 through June 2014

Yikes. It's been almost a year and a half since I posted?! How did that happen?? Oh, I know-Life, job, kids, etc. I have a whole other baby since the last time I posted! Sheesh! So much has happened in the past year and a half. Even with all of the ups and downs so far, I love this barn. I think it's important to mention right off the bat that I have the best barn partner! It's update time, so here we go:

Where do I even start? I guess I can go timeline-style. My last post was August 2013. We had finished the renovation on the main house and had tenants move in. We were still working on garbage removal and stall prep and the many other projects around the barn. Basically every penny that came in went straight to cleaning projects and construction projects.

In the fall, we had a setback that cost us a tenant. It was frustrating, but we made do and moved on. Yes, there was drama. No sense in going into details, but we came out of it smarter and decided to add Horse Care Minimum Standards to any future lease/board contract.

Also in the fall, we brought in a trainer. This brought a few extra boarders and a couple of training horses. I think at one point, we had 18 horses at the barn. It was great seeing the hustle and bustle of an active barn. In December, we brought in some much needed new footing to the outdoor arena to prepare for our first schooling show in January.

On December 30th, I had a baby! On January 5th, we had our first schooling show. A new baby is no excuse to not be there! I was walking around wearing said baby snuggled into a wrap, nice and cozy. The weather and turnout were both great, but the feedback told us that the organization of the show left something to be desired. We chalked it up to another learning experience (Kerry and I were not the organizers). We decided that for the next show, we either needed to be completely hands on or completely hands off.

We ordered a few saddle pads with our logo!

In May, the Woodbrook Hunt Pony Club hosted another schooling show at our barn (we chose the completely hands off option). Much better organization! The show was a hit! Again, we had beautiful weather and a great turnout! I even did a round!

The easiest way to move the kids around the barn:

In the spring, our riding lawnmower died. Mowing 6+ acres with a push mower is a great workout....but it's way too time consuming in light of all of the other things we need to get done. So, we got a (used) new one to take care of the pesky fast growing grass in June! And a leaf blower for the barn aisles!

In June, we took advantage of the nice weather and pressure washed and painted some of the barn exterior. Much better!

The sprucing up was to prepare for hosting a clinic with Dan James. If you don't know who he is, watch this.

Kerry was out of town, so I was on my own to get everyone settled in and answer questions. The clinic particpants arrived Friday night, so I had to have stalls ready. Easier said than done. You don't realize how much work needs to be done to the stalls when they haven't been used in a couple of years! I had a couple of stall door boards to repair and some nails to pound down (how were they not noticed by the previous owner?!). The clinic went really well; I got to catch some snippets of it between barn chores. My friend Erika even came up from California to attend! Here are some pics from the weekend:

That brings us to the end of June. Obviously there were SO many more things that happened (like bi-weely water line repairs!), but I wanted to make it somewhat short and sweet. Stay tuned for the next blog: Destruction!!!!

Ok, one more pic. These were my summer nights after barn projects were done for the night: Globe lights, summer breeze, Netflix on the iPad, and a glass of wine. :)

After Pictures: The Main House

After lots of late weekend nights, we finally finished the inside of the main house! We had tenants moving in July 1st, so we were on a deadline! We worked until 1 am on Sunday, June 30th. Nothing like a little pressure! I'll shut up now and just show you pics. :)

And just for fun, here's a silly video of the things that kept Greyson entertained while we worked:



Also, I can't take credit for these pics; the tenants took them on their first day of moving. :)

The Biggest Project So Far

When we bought Brookwood, we expected to have to do a lot of work. Our thoughts going into it went like this: Well, the previous owners let it go to foreclosure, so we'll have to do about 3 years worth of property maintenance to get it up to par. In some ways we were right, but mostly it was a gross understatement. For instance, we hauled out over 100 yards of garbarge. 100. Yards. The barns have 39 stalls. I would guess that about 25 of them were full of junk. Not to mention an entire loft in the hay barn. Here's some of our pile:

But even that wasn't our biggest project. Our most extensive and expensive project was the main house. We underestimated it because the previous owners were still living there when we first looked at the property. We figured that if they still lived there....then it was livable. Nope. Between an unusable HVAC system due to a dead racoon on the main duct under the house, and a carpet where 8 indoor dogs had soaked through the carpet with their urine, the house SMELLED BAD. Here's some before pics:

The Lovely Emerald Green Carpet

There wasn't really anything wrong with the kitchen. Though the light blue paint didn't match the green that was EVERYWHERE else in the house.

A Cute Pic of Greyson for No Reason

The Laundry Room

Before and After shots of the door between the main house and the attached MIL. We wanted the living spaces to be seperate, so we took out the door.

Once we realized how bad the carpet was, we started tearing it up.

Yep, those were pet stains all the way down into the subfloor. That meant we needed to coat it with Kilz. 3 coats of it!

Our work truck and trailer

Tre getting ready to go fetch the dead raccoon under the house.

Now it was time to get some new flooring in and do some painting. We had new carpet installed in some of the house, but the pergo we did ourselves.

And a thank you to our friends that helped! (I didn't always have the camera out, so sorry to those not pictured! We still appreciate you!)

Coming up next: After pictures of the house!