January 2014. No hay here!

First round at cleaning/reorganization:

late May 2014

Grain front left with supplements directly above.  Shelf unit with Renegades, Specialized pads and shims, and Thorowgood screws and gullet plates, plus pony hair-care (braiding bands and coconut oil).  If you look at the floor space and wonder how to get two bales in there and still have walking space.. you’re not alone!
Blanket and cooler are stashed in a box against the wall on the left (under the purple bucket).  I’m counting on the fact that I don’t need them very often, so being very inconvenient is okay.

Second round:
Minus one saddle, plus three bales of hay.  Right saddle rack has been raised to accommodate a bale of hay living underneath (not in the original plan, but who says no to inexpensive alfalfa during ride season?).  Rarely-used bale of hay just so happens to double as shelf space for my excess grooming stuff.

June 2014

Third round:
Bale bag on the bale of alfalfa to avoid massive hay-spreading.  Ikea towel racks for the saddle pads.

August 2014

A few things:
1. I love having my saddle pads on roof-height racks.  They’re just high enough I can barely-comfortably reach the bars, and that wall space wasn’t going to be useful for much anything else!  (Double towel racks from Ikea.  LOVE these.)
2. I cannot comfortably fit three saddles without having one get mouse-nibbled.  I took the older endurance saddle home and it’s living in my room.
3. I cannot leave my spare purple water bucket in my tack room or the mice make themselves at home, literally, and I am so over finding mice in my spare bucket (especially when said bucket was right under the leather saddle).  It’s living in my car, eventually to end up in my room.  This is actually OK.  It only gets used for endurance rides, so some of my other ride-only gear can be stashed in it at home, keeping it all together.
4. You always need extra hooks.  Always.  My boyfriend asked if I wanted a fourth hook on the door.  Obviously not – I only had plans to keep one bridle, breastplate, and halter there.  Not a month later and I’m already keeping another bridle on the door.
4b. Spare nails that previous residents left sticking out (preferably the head, sometimes the point) make excellent hooks.
4c. Looking at the door.. I wonder if I could add a hook for the girth to hang up top?
5. My bareback pad needs its own rack (or to live over the almost-never-ever-used saddle).
6. Shelves are important.  Not pictured: shelf immediately overhead when you walk in!  Little-used stuff lives up there.
7. Grain and stuff for in the mash all lives conveniently on the left: grouped and easy accessible.
8. Three bales of hay fit fairly comfortably, as long as I don’t need to get to the one in back very often (hello, straight alfalfa!).  Four would fit if you rotated them sideways – but then there’s almost no walkway.
9. If I only ever use it at rides, it’s probably fine to leave it at home.  Hay nets, spare hoof boot, water bucket – and a set of brushes I can keep separate and use for rides.
10. If it’s just ‘stuff’.. it can live at home.  Western saddle pad?  Lovely, but no use currently.  Three extra English pads?  Home.  Varying leather pieces that once made up a bridle or two?  Home.