You could say that it’s in my blood. My family has always had a knack for repurposing what we have, and this tack shed project was no exception. My in-laws, who live next door to us, had a small tack shed that was sitting next to the old corral that was on their place. It had been there for I don’t know how many years.
The "Once-in-a-Century" Flood
About six years ago, we were hit by a “once in a century” flood that pretty much took out the usefulness of the corral due to its being on the lowest spot on the property. So, we moved both the corral and the tack shed to a higher spot that was on our property. I built a calf shed out of reused wood that I had and we stored hay in it. It was a pretty good working system until we didn’t need it anymore. We decided not to keep calves over the winter and just feed them out during the summer using the pasture on the far backside of our property.
Another Storm
Two years ago, last August, we were hit with another freak storm that pretty much annihilated the roofs on all of the buildings in town (that will be in another blog post), including our tack shed and the calf shed. So, things just sat as they were while we figured out what to do with things. We took down the corral, repurposed the calf shed for use as an outdoor kitchen (those adventures will also show up in another blog post) and decided to move the tack shed closer to the house and see if we could bring it back to life.
I wish I had taken pictures of moving the building and then what it looked like in its sad little state. It was pretty pitiful. But the bones were still good, and I thought “Why not give it a shot”. I’ll share three pictures with you. One of what we started with (when I finally figured out that pictures of the process may be of use to someone), a second one about midway through the process and one of the end result.
Here's What We Started With
About Midway Through the Project
The Final Result
98% of the building materials were leftovers from previous projects that we had on hand. The wood roofing materials (the roof decking underneath the tin), were from the interior of the old Flora Stage Stop from Flora, OR. The tin was leftover from my sister’s new house project. The siding on the tack shed was a combination of Hardy siding leftover from our house project and some siding panels that were taken off of our daughter’s house due to that same storm. The door was built out of some plywood that I had sitting in the warehouse taking up space and all the trim was also fabricated from leftover materials that just needed a home. The only things we needed to buy new were nails, deck screws, screws to hold the tin down and the paint.
"Let Me Sum Up..."
I guess it all comes down to this. Look around and find something you want to work on. Look around your house and see what you have that you could work with. There's usually something that you can repurpose into something else. This project was two-fold for us. It brings family history into play and uses up parts and pieces that would normally either be burned or sent to the landfill.
Remember, you can do this!
Be well,
Garrett
