Ideas for Turning Your Garage into a Horse Tack Room

Garages are one location that each person can use differently. While some might want to turn it into a music studio, others might want to turn it into a yoga studio. Some people even convert their garages into home theaters. However, you may convert your garage into a horse-tack room if you reside in a rural area.

You need to do many things, and you’ll need to know where to start and what materials your horse tack room needs. Although it may seem like a challenging project, you can easily streamline it and get incredible benefits by using the following suggestions.

What is a Tack Room?

You can keep your saddle, bridle, and other riding equipment in a tack room. Shelves, saddle racks, and hooks are necessary for a tack room to keep your stuff arranged and easy to access. It should also be clean, dry, well-lit, and well-ventilated to prevent mold from growing on your leather products.

If you own a horse, your tack room’s ultimate goal should be to have everything arranged so that it’s simple and quick to find what you need for your horse. This not only saves time, but it also extends the life of your tack and saves money on completely unnecessary purchases.

How to Make a Good Horse Tack Room?

Prevent Humidity

Humidity

Leather is a common material for horse equipment. These consist of saddles, bridles, stirrups, and other equipment. These items will become damaged if there is moisture in the tack room. Leather is prone to mold growth in conditions of intense heat and moisture. It’s important to avoid humidity while converting your garage into a tack room. Add appropriate insulation and weather stripping to maintain the ideal temperature in your tack room. This is also another effective way to keep insects out.

Invest in a good dehumidifier, fan, and air conditioner to avoid moisture and heat buildup. However, buying a heating system is advisable if you live in a cold climate. This is due to the possibility of frozen leather cracks that become useless.

Make Good Lighting a Priority

Lighting

It can be dark in a garage. Even if it has lights, there usually aren’t many of them. However, any tack room needs good lighting to function well. You can use it to find every piece of equipment. Furthermore, strong lighting prevents animals like mice, birds, and lizards from settling in your tack room. Moreover, you need good lighting when greasing your saddle or cleaning your tools. For the garage, get the best portable work lights.

Form a Plan for the Available Place

Planning

Develop a plan that makes the best use of your available space. We advise you to start by making a list of everything you need. After that, sort the things into categories. For example, you might have saddles, helmets, and gloves for riding. However, you can also purchase grooming products like shampoo. You may choose the storage type you need by being aware of everything you have. You can choose whether you need shelves, bins, hooks, and other storage options. We’ll talk more about what should be in a decent break room.

After making an inventory of your things, arrange them according to the available space and the regularity of use. You should keep grooming items close to the door because you will use them often. You can also put other items in the front that you use weekly or monthly. However, seasonal things like tool kits should be placed in the back of the room.

Make Use of the Wall

The best storage space in your tack room is on the walls. They are ideal for lifting saddles, bridles, and other such items. This will prevent them from collecting dust on the floor, making them last longer. The leather won’t be scratched, and the polish will remain shiny. Additionally, mounting all of this equipment on the wall will free up space for you to store other things on the floor. You can also buy collapsible solid bridle racks or install hooks.

Invest in Storage Options

Tack Room Storage

To hang anything on the walls, you need strong hooks. Make sure they are not just durable but also free of sharp edges. The leather may get scratched if the hook has a sharp end. Other excellent choices include hangers, rods, and fixtures. 

Good storage solutions are important when converting your garage into a tack room. Install a pegboard on the wall if you need to hang any additional small items. Shelves are also necessary for storing your grooming supplies, horseshoe maintenance tools, and other things. Heavy equipment can be kept in the way with boxes, trunks, and other floor storage.

Store Smartly to Save Space

You can save a lot of room by keeping your belongings stored properly. To save up some space:

  • Use a vacuum on bags. You can save space by doing this since air takes up a lot of extra space.
  • Place the bottles upright side by side.
  • Roll up items like blankets and clothing into little bundles and set them upright. You’ll be able to keep the most blankets possible.

Also, you won’t need to take off the top layers to access the bottom-layer things.

Label All Your Storage

Labeling

All of your boxes need to have distinct labels. You’ll have simple access to all of your equipment thanks to this. Otherwise, you’ll have to open and check each box individually. Never label a box on the top; always label it on the side. If you label the sides, even if you stack boxes on top of one another, you will be able to see the tags. When converting your garage into a tack room, it’s important to keep everything organized.

Keep a Calendar in the Tack Room

Any tack room needs to have a calendar. It makes it easier to remember when you give your horses their medication. Also, you can record the days you start them on new diets and the times you need to take them to the vet.

A Mini Fridge and a File Cabinet

On the internet, buying a used small fridge is simple. It is indeed important to have a mini-fridge for safely storing animal medicines. It is important to do this in hot areas since the drugs must be kept cool.

A file cabinet is important for safely keeping all paperwork about your horse. These can be old medical records, birth records, or other such documents. When setting up a tack room, these two factors are very important.

A First Aid Kit

First Aid Kit

Horses are extremely active animals. They require a lot of attention because of this. Keep a first aid kit nearby at all times. Band-Aids, aspirin, antibiotics, and vet wrap should all be included in your first aid kit. Another requirement is a set of tweezers. Tweezers are important for both you and the horse. Splinters are very common when riding.

What Should Things Be Stored in Your Tack Room?

You can have a tack room in your garage. Garages are used for various purposes, but they serve the same function: storage spaces for all horse-related items, from saddles to hoof picks. The standard things that a tack room should have are listed below.

  • Bridle Holders
  • Bits
  • Blinkers
  • Halters
  • Hoof Boots
  • Horse Blankets and Brackets
  • Lead Ropes
  • Leg Wraps
  • Reins
  • Saddles
  • Saddle Pads
  • Safety Helmet Holders
  • And Other Horse Equipment

These are the most common items that you should have in your tack room. 

Ideal Design for a Tack Room

It’s important to think about your tack room’s temperature. The tack room needs to be kept clean, pleasant, and dry throughout the year for your comfort and to help prevent dust, grime, dampness, mold, and moisture from damaging equipment.

The easiest method to guarantee your tack room stays tidy and dry all year is to have it properly sealed and insulated. Draughts won’t be developed, and small animals and insects won’t be able to enter and build nests either. You can protect your riding equipment regardless of the weather by considering temperature levels early in the design process. Although the roof is lined, our tack rooms are not. However, this can be done for an additional cost.

Many typical tack room features are now common at the United States riding stables. Traditional tack rooms have finished (usually painted or paneled) tack storage areas with molding, cabinetry, and detailing.

Check out these some of the ideal designs of a Tack Room:

Modern Tack Room

Tack room design options were formerly limited to a rustic Western style or a classic design with British influences. However, contemporary home design trends are finding their way into the design of horse barns and stables. A modern tack room embraces the “modern farmhouse” interior design aesthetic, establishing a balance between the traditional English-inspired classic tack storage room and the rustic style horse tack room.

Rustic Tack Room

Rustic tack rooms are probably the most recognized horse tack room in America. In rustic style tack rooms, unfinished walls, woodgrain, and sometimes live edge lumber help to create a pleasant cabin-like atmosphere. Tack rooms that are unpainted and rustic are typically less expensive to build and furnish. Wooden or log accents, stained wood saddle racks, soft rugs, antique lighting, and wool blankets are examples of rustic horse equipment storage room ideas. These tack rooms are a lot easier to keep looking neat and clean than the white-washed version common for modern tack rooms, and they are both warm and efficient.

Conclusion

With so many options, converting your garage into a tack room for horses is not difficult. Using the tips mentioned above, you may quickly convert a horse tack room from a garage. Remember that the items we included are some of the best in terms of price and technical quality. So give them a try because they might be a useful addition to your tack room.