Tack Storage

With the moves, for me and Katai, I needed to do a significant amount of downsizing. Not only did I lose storage space at the barn, I also lost a lot of storage space at the apartment.

At my last apartment I had an entire closet (that was pretty large) full of stuff as well as a large tack trunk. Even then I was often busting out of that space so it only made sense that when I moved in with another person I couldn’t necessarily expect to use the same amount of space for my passion (ie: buying all the horse things). However, I also wasn’t willing to get rid of TOO much stuff so when we officially signed the lease for this apartment I right away “called” one of the small hallway closets.

Tough to tell from this picture but at my old apartment
I had this HUGE closet and it was packed full of horse stuff. This doesn't even include the stuff I had in my antique horse trunk or my tack locker at the barn.

I wasn’t sure exactly how I’d fit all of my stuff in that space but I knew that I needed some dedicated space for all of the tack and horse items that I couldn’t keep at the barn and that I wanted that to be near the front door in a space where it could be a little messy as barn stuff often is. I had just been tossing stuff in there and it was reaching cartoonish levels when I saw an Instagram story from my new instructor of her tack set up. She had a full tack room to work with and I only had a small closet so I knew that I’d need to get creative to make my plan work but at least I now had something in mind. With that I began measuring the space I had and shopping online.

It just so happened that Target had a sale on shelves so while I started with looking on Amazon I quickly found something even better on Target. Unfortunately none of the dimensions worked out exactly the way I wanted but since I didn’t want to go custom I needed to find something close.

What it looks like now! Much smaller closet but much cuter organization :)

In the end, I purchased these really cute cube shelves! They may not be ideal from a storage set up perspective but for the cost they work well and the ability to use the storage cubes to organize all the small items is invaluable. I also had been wanting to hang my saddle pads for a long time and after seeing my instructor’s set up I settled on that as part of the plan. With that in mind I bought an adjustable curtain rod and two holders, one storage cube (I already had the other two), a couple of hangers and voila!

It doesn’t fit perfectly, the fact that it can’t be flush with the trim drives me very slightly nuts (but no way am I pulling the trim in an apartment and incurring the cost to fix it when we move out) but I can deal with that especially for the cost. Overall I think everything cost me just about $65 which I can definitely live with!

Recap and Coming Up Next

I'm so pleased about how our show went this past weekend. I learned a lot and I think there were a lot of good take aways. I went back and forth about whether to post this but from a journalling perspective I think it will be very helpful for me so I'm going with it.

1. I need to continue to do more ground work

She had been doing so well in her normal environment that I've been ignoring this a little. I had focused on it in the weeks before the show but I need to make this more of a priority. Of course she's only bad when she's under stress and I was actually able to keep her from running me over which was enough for me at this show, but I want to make it even better for next time.

2. Trailering

This one is so frustrating when you don't have your own trailer. I have someone that has a trailer that I can maybe borrow but she's been out of town for the past month so I haven't been able to talk to her about it. H has a trailer but it's about 2 hours away so it's nearly impossible to got get it, park it at the barn for a few days and then deliver it 2 hours away again :(

I'm going to do some begging and see if I can borrow a trailer on any sort of regular basis. It's not that I can't get her on, it's more that it causes her a lot of stress and I'd like to be able to practice show trips on a regular basis.

3. Packing Stuff

Randomly piled in my little car before the show

I struggled with all my stuff last weekend. It didn't help that it was rainy and muddy but with my lack of organization my stuff got even wetter and dirtier than it would have been with more preparation. Between that and not being able to find what I needed, plus lots of trips back and forth to my car, and I really need to figure out a better system.

Mucky, wet, stinky tack after the show (and cute puppy :)

I love planning and organizing stuff like this so I'd put some thought into it but, honestly, it caught me a little off guard that my show came up that quickly. Next time I'll be better prepared!

My poor boots

Our next show is coming up quickly! I'm going another schooling show on June 25th and L is out of town tomorrow through the 19th. I'll do fine on my own, especially since it's less about riding and more about handling the dragon pony. What's actually going to be a little trickier is that I'm going out of town early on Monday and will be out of town through Friday. In between I'll be riding two horses on Saturday and Sunday for three weekends in a row. At least I won't be lacking riding time :)