Boarding barn tradeoffs

[Alterration]

@hoopoe

Important factor for my opinion is that I am in the Seattle area where winters are not so very cold but they are dark and it is our wet season

Rain would definitely be an issue if I lived in Seattle I lived in a rainy area of the east coast, and I get that.

Here the rain storms are brief and few. It’s often in the mid 60s well into December. Summer is actually the biggest issue, as it does get hot, but it’s super humid too, so even with a cover, there will be days/weeks where the heat index is just not safe to ride. Part & parcel of living less than a mile from the Mississippi (we’re at a higher elevation, safe from flooding, but the humidity here is IMO worse than Florida).

It’s lit, and the footing is “ok”. There are a few deeper spots that I’ve been trying to remedy. It’s just not to my level of pickiness of footing.

[B-burg_Dressage]

Just chiming in–also live in Mid-Missouri and only have an outdoor. It truly is possible if the arena was built correctly. I generally ride 4 times/week and only give maybe a couple weeks off total each winter when things are frozen solid. Never any standing water or slop–even when the rest of the world is a puddle in the spring.

I’m married to a concrete worker, so concrete aisle all the way. And if you’re going to do that, you might as well do the indoor wash rack at the same time. Labor is your biggest expense with concrete so knock it out at once.

I would also do the “easy” and “cheap” updates of tack room and overall impression items. This should include simple landscaping. Anything that improves that first impression of someone coming to see the place.

Finally, updating arena footing. This depends entirely upon how good or bad your footing really is.

I doubt you’d get return on your money with a covered arena with a small barn and semi-casual riders. Though I dream about covered arenas myself when it’s raining.

[hoopoe]

rain in puget sound country does not come in big doses, as a rule. 0.25 inch is a big day. it just mists and drizzles, a lot. You get use to it and the persistent dampness makes footing a challenge. Also makes tack care a challenge and heated and ventilated tack rooms are pretty important. Great barns have blanket rooms where blankets can be hung to dry.

forecast in winter is low 36 high 45 drizzle, repeat

it has barely rained ( 0.26 inch if I remember correctly) since start of June and we are all impatient for the rain to start.

[Alterration]

@hoopoe

rain in puget sound country does not come in big doses, as a rule. 0.25 inch is a big day. it just mists and drizzles, a lot. You get use to it and the persistent dampness makes footing a challenge. Also makes tack care a challenge and heated and ventilated tack rooms are pretty important. Great barns have blanket rooms where blankets can be hung to dry.

forecast in winter is low 36 high 45 drizzle, repeat

it has barely rained ( 0.26 inch if I remember correctly) since start of June and we are all impatient for the rain to start.

Yeah - that was like the area I used to live in a long time ago. We noted when there was a sunny day. I have to say that once I moved here, I realized that I noted when there is a gray day - it’s entirely the opposite experience.

The humidity is gross though, and our ventilation here is still important for tack but definitely not as bad as where I used to live. There, you’d store a saddle for a few days and you might have some mold. Leave it for two weeks, and it would be completely green.

Here, there are a few saddles on my rack that haven’t been touched in years and they just have cobwebs. I have tack in my garage (of my own) that hasn’t been touched since we moved here a year ago, and it’s fine. Definitely different than where I used to live!

[Casey09]

I don’t know what the current footing is like, but that would be my first concern because I associate bad footing with injury and lameness (not saying your footing is bad). However, I think the whole cover the arena or improve footing first is going to lean towards do the cover and then the footing.
I live a few hours away, and I don’t know that I’d want to ride without a cover on the arena. It just seems like the sun beating down on it in the summer would make it really hard, as well as rain. I’m understand that it isn’t totally out of commission for weeks at a time, but if your schedule isn’t flexible, it might be out of commission when you want to ride.
After the footing and the arena cover, I think I’d be prefer the order of the aisle, and then the wash stall, and then the tack room.
I do however think it may be possible to spend a couple of days just painting the tack room walls and you could improve the space for a very low investment. As a boarder, if the tack room is dry and not rodent infested or something, I can live with it.

[Alterration]

@Casey09

I don’t know what the current footing is like, but that would be my first concern because I associate bad footing with injury and lameness (not saying your footing is bad). However, I think the whole cover the arena or improve footing first is going to lean towards do the cover and then the footing.
I live a few hours away, and I don’t know that I’d want to ride without a cover on the arena. It just seems like the sun beating down on it in the summer would make it really hard, as well as rain. I’m understand that it isn’t totally out of commission for weeks at a time, but if your schedule isn’t flexible, it might be out of commission when you want to ride.

It doesn’t get hard. The deficiency is that it’s plain sand, and a bit “dead-feeling”, and there are a few deeper areas (easily avoided). I’ve been working to level those out, but the arena had been built for roping, so the area where they would flip the cows upon being roped, and one area near where the slope of the drain are are slightly deeper. I suspect the base may be slightly dipped from that usage and that’s why I can’t get it to not feel deep in those two spots.

The dead-feeling is the biggest bummer to me - I like springy, somewhat tight, footing. But I KNOW I’m picky.

I think the longest it’s ever been down in the summer is 3 days and you could still ride on the track and through the middle, just not in a few areas - but you had more than a standard dressage arena space that is fine to ride in, and in the winter 2 weeks for ice. But people don’t even come to the barn in that weather because the whole area is iced in. So, it’s not like people are dying to ride and can’t (usually I send them videos of their horses during that period of time).

It really isn’t as bad as it seems, but it IS a perception thing. People who haven’t ridden in it and experienced it for a year don’t know. And I don’t blame them. I probably would have been the same way had I not experienced this place

To someone else’s point - the payoff will likely be small on a cover, despite me wanting one as well. The current boarders may not be willing to pay the premium - I know I’d be pricing a few out. It really is seeming more and more like a risky endeavor, and I don’t want to change my clientele.

[anon15718925]

@Alterration

Sure - I’ll get some pictures this afternoon. It hasn’t been addressed yet at all other than the roof because the previous owner left it…less than desirable and full of tack and junk. The whole barn was left that way. It’s been quite a cleanup job. I still have to rent a dumpster for one of the sheds which he claimed he was going to clean out and never did. I’m still chafed.

Okay so obligatory “I don’t own a barn, especially not a boarding barn” but the way you describe that I’d say if I were you I’d start with that tack room and finish it and go from there if only to make yourself happier with that element of it.

[TheJenners]

@Alterration

It’s lit, and the footing is “ok”. There are a few deeper spots that I’ve been trying to remedy. It’s just not to my level of pickiness of footing.

Then I would do this first Your quoted price for covering the arena is a hard no for me, no one can afford that these days. But a covered round pen would be tres nice, you can’t do much more than mental health riding in one but would be a very nice option to have. I’ve considered it myself to be honest but sorta ran out of space unless I want to put it someplace where walking to it negates the covered round pen part

@hoopoe

Also makes tack care a challenge and heated and ventilated tack rooms are pretty important.

Sounds like OP has this covered, because as soon as she said humid I was like “ack, green tack!” I had a pipe burst last winter in the tackroom and did mitigate it as good as possible but concrete stays wet for a long time. I literally cried at some of my tack, I traded some nice but green bridles and money to someone else to clean about six bridles, and now one saddle lives inside permanently because it was so awful.

@hoopoe

it has barely rained ( 0.26 inch if I remember correctly) since start of June and we are all impatient for the rain to start.

I don’t think we’ve even had that much, being in the shadow, and I’m so tired of blowing coal dust out of my nose from doing 20 min worth of morning chores I just can’t stand it.

[anon15718925]

@Alterration

the guy at the corner makes bird houses out of old license plates and has them mounted all along his fence so that place looks a little odd.

The bird houses sound neat (I have a purse like that actually that I got at a thrift store type place around here - there was some brand called Little Earth that used to make them years ago and that’s what mine is but I guess they don’t make those specific purses any longer, mine seems to be older) but yeah too many would look odd.

[Alterration]

@anon15718925

The bird houses sound neat (I have a purse like that actually that I got at a thrift store type place around here - there was some brand called Little Earth that used to make them years ago and that’s what mine is but I guess they don’t make those specific purses) but yeah too many would look odd.

He’s an odd bird. I guess he dated one of the other neighbors and then got confused about whose mailbox was whose…so he put a broken miniature carousel horse in mine. No note…just this broken ceramic horse.

I asked the neighbor about it, and she was like oh, that’s just Carl, he still wants to date me and leaves me gifts…and I was like…uhhhhhhh…I have questions but I am not going to ask them because I’m not sure I want the answer.

[anon15718925]

I dunno why but the “oh, that’s just Carl” attitude cracks me up. Hopefully the weird neighbors aren’t too weird that said.

[Bebe_Falcon1]

@Alterration

But it does matter to me that I can walk into my barn and feel proud. My BHS background did a number on me Just this morning I walked in and turned all the halters…they were hung the wrong way, drives me batty!

[Alterration]

@anon15718925

I dunno why but the “oh, that’s just Carl” attitude cracks me up. Hopefully the weird neighbors aren’t too weird that said.

I never know what “too weird” looks like LOL I don’t think any of them are dangerous, but receiving a broken ceramic horse in the mailbox did cause me a few “is this a godfather moment? is this a threat?” until I found out it was “just” Carl.

We have another guy who cuts through our property with his dog to visit his brother. That part is no big deal, but he said that he wanted to make sure his dog didn’t eat any horse poop because his dog was organic.

The guy with the whirligigs is a great big bear of a man, very Hagrid looking, with 4 or 5 tiny chihuahuas that he walks and you hear him bellowing at periodically.

It’s a hoot!

[clanter]

@Alterration

make sure his dog didn’t eat any horse poop

I have been waiting for some pet food company to come out with a Horse Poop line of dog food, we have our dogs fenced out of the pastures as they would clean that place up

As for a covered arena, back in the old days when I was a manager at building supply company one of the clients bought a clear span commercial building that was being removed from Fort Knox, it was around 160 foot clear, they disassembled the building at the site moving to his farm

[Alterration]

@clanter

As for a covered arena, back in the old days when I was a manager at building supply company one of the clients bought a clear span commercial building that was being removed from Fort Knox, it was around 160 foot clear, they disassembled the building at the site moving to his farm

That would be cool if I could find one!

[anon15718925]

@Alterration

The guy with the whirligigs is a great big bear of a man, very Hagrid looking, with 4 or 5 tiny chihuahuas that he walks and you hear him bellowing at periodically.

That is an amusing mental image!

[SusanO]

Somebody here or around Montevallo did almost the same thing a few years ago. I don’t know them but saw it on a Facebook post. Only now I can’t remember where I saw it. They did say that they saved a lot of money doing this. It was not a huge arena but bigger than a roundpen. Even doing that I wouldn’t be able to cover my arena unless I win the lottery.

[clanter]

@SusanO

They did say that they saved a lot of money doing this.

this was back in the later 1970s but even then he said the arena cost him less than 30% of what he had been quoted for purpose built structure, This had actually been an Army base theater. He was the only person that bid on the structure so his low ball offer was accepted

[TheJenners]

@Alterration

That part is no big deal, but he said that he wanted to make sure his dog didn’t eat any horse poop because his dog was organic.

Well this wins the Internet for today

[CindyCRNA]

I didn’t catch that this place has no indoor. No grass + no indoor = hard no but my guy has specific needs.