My barn’s loft area (unfinished and unused) is occupied by a black rat snake. I have no problems with rodents, raccoons, squirrels, or with birds. All of my cats live indoors. Matilda (after the snake in Rita Mae Brown’s books) has been with me for 10 years now, and I have watched her grow; her last shed skin measured 6 feet long and 3 inches in diameter.
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They offer a loft option with staircase, even for a smaller barn.
Check out the 36X48 w/finished upper level under High Profile 
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I boarded at a barn that turned the loft into a “fun” room. They had a mini bar with wine/beer, snacks, couch and tv. It was a great place to hang out and for barn parties.
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Rats can walk right up a board wall. Racoons can rip off shingles and crawl in. Obviously they tend to head for food sources so may not be interested in an empty loft.
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Sure, I get that. I have 30 thousand pounds of hay in the loft, and a motley assortment of horse blankets, buckets, farm supplies, etc etc etc. I’m not sure why you’d assume it’s empty?
Norway rats generally don’t go up unless there are a lot of them at ground level. A few try to burrow at the barn foundation this time of year, and are quickly evicted. I’ve never seen roof rats here, which are better climbers. A raccoon would have to go straight up and around the eave to get on the roof, which has never happened.
I’m in the loft weekly to pull down hay. Other than spiders, there are no pests. Not saying it’s not an issue for others, but it’s certainly not a forgone conclusion that there will be rodents or whatever in the loft.
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We might have roof rats. They love being up high.
That one is very pretty! I played with the Horizon barn builder thing but didn’t ask for a quote, I’ve heard stories 
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Anyone else snooping around the virtual tours to look at their stuff? I know I am!
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My barn is similar to the one linked. As much as I don’t love having a combined tack/grain room, there is no way I’m schlepping saddles up and down my loft stairs each time I want to ride.
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I grew up in the county where Horizon is headquartered, so I’ve been in and around their barns my whole life. The prefab shedrow I have now might even be one of theirs (it was here when I bought the farm).
The one I linked is just a blueprint for sale, but I know Horizon makes a near identical building because I worked for a breeder with one and have been in quite a few others.
A separate feed room and tack room is one of the things up there high on my wishlish. Ground level hay storage is also high on my wishlist. However, something like the structure I linked is tempting if replaced the wash stall with a 5th stall that I could use as storage.
All if this is for nothing more than my own musing, though. There are about 3,000 other projects to be addressed before “new barn” enters the conversation.
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I played “design your perfect barn” for over 30 years. Over that time I boarded at and visited a lot of barns so “perfect” would change frequently. I finally built ten years ago - and wouldn’t you know, It’s not perfect. Nice, comfortable, functional, but not perfect any more.
An example- the water heater is installed out of sight in a closed loft space above the bathroom. It was perfect and out of sight for 10 years, Now it needs replacing. It’s like the water heater was there first, and the barn was build around it. It is going to be a b•••• to get to. I shoulda thought of access for service.
Our top of the tack room/longe/bathroom and feed room is enclosed and insulated and strictly a storage area for barn and horse supplies, accessible thru an attic type ladder.
Our water heater is in our feed room and handy to work around it.
We were going to enclose it in it’s own closet, decided not for now:
This is basically my barn. 6 stalls, tack room, feed room with stairs to the loft. I use one stall to store about a week’s worth of hay, everything else is upstairs. A wash rack would be a nice to have, but not sure there’s really a huge difference inside vs outside, unless installing hot water. And dealing with that over winter seems to add a whole additional layer of complexity.
I’d love ground level hay storage but flat, buildable ground is at a premium here. It would be really nice to be able to store and feed large bales, rather than pay the premium for the small squares and intense handling they require. But, there are some plus sides to keeping it upstairs–I never have critters in the hay, and it stays dry dry dry.
I feed my barn cats in the loft . Both food & water and store their extra kibble up in the loft too in a trash can.
No way would I want to go up and down the stairs with saddles and all manner of tack! Not because stairs are difficult for me but because I can easily kill myself now with a “raised” tack/ feed room and 3 wide/ deep steps to navigate daily.
The curse of aging ungracefully 
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One of the barns I was at this year had these itty bitty lockers in the heated tack room; enough for a couple growing totes and maybe some smaller supplies. Saddle/bridle racks were all on the walls. There was a loft for overflow storage which is where a lot of my stuff ended up having several disciplines worth of gear. While Im glad it was there, I wouldn’t recommend it for day to day gear getting/putting away.
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The barn I board at has an upstairs tack room. There are 11 stairs, slightly steeper than normal house steps. I keep my grooming stuff hanging on the door of my stall, but manage to carry my saddle (dressage), pad (western), bridle and helmet down or up in one trip. Now that my knees are crap, it’s harder going up and down the stairs. If we had an empty stall on the first floor, I know I’d use it to keep my saddle in. But we don’t, so I can’t.
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I mean, in a way, I’ve been playing it my entire life, too. But I’m not a design person— I tend to be able to tolerate a lot, plus become crippled by indecision.
We will need to eventually build a new barn here, as the dumpy shedrow will not last forever. My ideal layout would be 36x48 with 4 stalls on one side, separate feed and tack rooms, and 2 extra stalls that would chiefly be used for hay storage. But 36x36 could also work just fine with smart planning. If the smaller footprint is significantly more economical (it may or may not be), it may be a more realistic design choice.
We are not even close to getting quotes or anything yet.
FWIW, separate feed and tack rooms are important to me… I’ve never had them at my own farms since I’ve become an adult, and the shared space just gets so cluttered and messy. Tack gets dirtier than it would in a tack only room, plus there is just so much stuff in one place. However, even after this conversation, I think if I built an enclosed tack cabinet in the feed room to hold my most frequently used saddles/bridles/boots, etc. and stored everything used infrequently in an enclosed loft storage room, it would be a workable compromise. Plus it would also simplify my wishlist desire to have a sink in both the tack and feed room.
Now to go check my lotto tickets as I trip over all the junk stored in my tiny 8x12 shared tack/feed room. 
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What if instead of a totally separate space, you make the enclosed space larger so that it’s not so tight? I agree that 8’ wide must feel like a sardine can.
Ooh, I love this idea. I also have the 8x10 combined grain/tack room, with doors on both of the 8’ sides AND 3 steps to the hay loft door, so I basically have two walls to work with. I already had a custom shelving unit built to hold my vittles vaults and smartpak drawers, which takes up half of one wall. But I could build a cabinet for the rest of the wall and put tack inside. I guess the downside is that it will make the room feel really closed in, as I am going to be putting cabinets/counter/sink on the other wall (the one with the hay loft stairs).
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Think, is extra room in there really needed or a luxury?
Will you be cleaning tack in there or any other that requires more room?
If so, would a folding saddle rack against the wall, even behind the door work to pull it out and clean a saddle and then fold and put away, or go outside the door to clean tack?
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