Converting half a garage to a small barn?

[StarPattern]

So my SO and I are looking for an acreage where we can keep my horses. We found one listing that we love and it checks all the boxes off on our list, so now we’re going through the process of making an offer, selling my house and all that other fun stuff.

That being said, this property has a huge garage. It has an overhead door wide enough for two cars on one side and then what looks like what was supposed to be a shop/work area that wasn’t fully contained. My little brain started thinking - “I could wall that in, add a sliding door and have a nice little indoor space to groom and let the vet/farrier work.”

Is that possible? My horses wouldn’t be living in there, but I figured it would be nice to have an enclosed area to work in when the weather is bad (as it seems to be often in Canada).

At most, I’d like to lay down some rubber mats and install a set of cross ties or something. Nothing too extreme or crazy, but is there anything that makes this a bad idea? It’ll be completely enclosed from the garage side, just sharing the same roof and exterior walls.

[2DogsFarm]

A former friend did just that - converted half her large 2-car garage to a foaling stall.

Where will your horses live?
You don’t mention a barn & IIWM, I’d want that grooming area as close to the barn as possible.

[clanter]

yeah as long as its safe, we used to keep my wife’s pony in our drive-in basement, pony had a stall where the old coal bind was. Pony was taken in/out through the garage to her dog pen , I mean pony pen.

I do advise you to be prepared for a visit from animal control or the animal humane society … we got both after a neighbor reported to the city that we were keeping a horse in our house

[StarPattern]

Horses will be living in 24/7 turnout with a shelter. The portion of the garage will be converted into a grooming area in case of bad weather (because we never have that in Alberta, hah) and the horses will not be living in there. It will be used primarily for grooming, tacking, farrier and vet visits. It will also be used for tack and hay cube storage, since my two don’t get normal hay. As for proximity to the pasture, the garage is about 500ft from the pasture fence.

I’m not too concerned about neighbors calling bylaw on me. The property we’re looking at is a rural sub-divison and every second neighbor has horses. I don’t see any barns, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there are others who have repurposed giant shops or garages as horse buildings. But if they do show up, that’s fine. They can tour around the property and make their notes.

[Dance_To_Oblivion]

As long as you have a provision for locking the horse in some type of “stall” I think it sounds fine. Having kept horses with no stall on the farm, I found that dealing with injuries/lost shoes/etc is just a miserable pain.

[StarPattern]

I wasn’t planning on having stalls, but now it just seems to make sense to build stalls anyway. If I’m going to be added a sliding door to the existing garage, I might as well add two stalls as well. My horses haven’t been stalled in many, many years (probably since the last time either of them foaled), but I suppose it would be smart to add a few just in case. I’ve seen some lovely box stalls made from reclaimed wood and recycled hardware. If nothing else, I’ll be able to finally say I have my own barn.

[Bluey]

Someone did that with an old farm Quonset type barn, one, two, here three portable stalls were added to it, easy to dismantle and change or take away once not needed any more.
Looks like they used Priefert stalls and added a loft over them for storage:

[StarPattern]

Bluey, those are great! Thank you!

[PeteyPie]

I think it’s a great idea on several fronts.

1. You will have water available without having to jump through hoops. Even if there is no sink, bathroom, or faucet in the garage, you can snake a hose through the house without having to worry about the hose freezing or hauling a heavy frozen hose back to the house. (Assuming there is some kind of drain).

2. By using a garage space, you are preserving a space for resale which is universally appealing. A garage is an easy sell – a barn has a limited market.

3. If you are dealing with a horse on stall rest or an injury, how nice to just walk from your house right into the garage in the middle of winter and not have to don boots and coats!

4. You mentioned farrier visits. What a nice space to have away from mosquitos and flies in the summer. In the winter it would be warm, dry, well-lighted. You will probably be your farrier’s favorite client.

The only concern I would have is ceiling height.

[SmartAlex]

For years we had our horses in the attached garage. One bay housed the sawdust pile and hay. The other (larger) had two box stalls. It was great in the winter to be able to do bed check without going outside. Only downside is when they got to arguing they would rattle the house. On the plus side, we knew when they were arguing.

[StarPattern]

Fortunately, the garage is not attached to the house, as convenient as that would be. The height of the garage will definitely be something to look into, but I distinctly remember looking up and thinking “wow, the tractor will fit in here!”, so I’m thinking the ceilings will be tall enough. If I had to hazard a guess without measuring, I’d think the garage was 10ft tall, or more.

Water will be another issue, but I believe a decent sized holding tank comes with the house (in addition to the cistern). My plan was to put it inside the garage to keep it warm, and run a hose from it to the outside trough. I could also use it to fill buckets in the barn if I needed water in there. Given the size of the garage, I was thinking I could leave the holding tank close enough to an exterior door that the water truck could simply fill it up at the same time they came by to fill the cistern.

[Bluey]

Here is another such set-up, one stall on each side of the overhead door.
You can’t see the other one there: