Well its been a long time coming, dreaming up many dreams, but I get the feeling the dreams are starting to finally become reality.. How exciting is that?! I moved to Squamish back in November of 2013 and coming from a 5 acre farm with Bodie, my horses, rabbits and chickens I couldn’t bare the idea of living in the Squamish downtown area, as seeing this is where a lot of the Equine community resides in Squamish, so from the moment of landing I started the long search for property out in the Squamish Valley. The day finally came when a rental property on 8 acres came available in May 2014, I went out, met the landlord, saw the place and immediately fell in love with the what could bes, seeing the beauty in everything, even that old broken down barn which was in need of some serious love.. I committed to the place right then and there and got to work even before moving in.. We started on the house painting the rooms, pulling out the carpeting, putting in new floors, etc.. Then the clean up of the property and barn started.. I was amazed at how much was loaded up in that old barn, from old chairs, wood, hay, tools, paint cans, you name it.. Took us about a week to get it sorted and completely cleaned out, then finding the rot in the floor of the soon to be tack room was a whole other task.. When this part of the job started to unfold all I could think of was why? Why did I think rebuilding and taking over the old barn was going to be a fun, easy feat? Why? I have to laugh now of course, but it was a serious feat to undertake and the question was where to start.. It began with the cleaning out of all the rot and mold, then ripping out the floor boards, levelling the ground and putting in new support beams.. Johan and I managed to scrape together all the old wood we could find around the property to rebuild the flooring, all except about 12ft x 3ft of flooring, which Johan managed to pick up at home depot.. So grateful for that man, I don’t think I could’ve done all of this with out him.. We finished off the flooring together and I got to giving the barn a good through clean out.. The main entrance way was a dirt floor and unlevel so we levelled it out and reused some old plywood for the flooring, picked up some off white paint and gave the walls a little bit of life.. Luckily Johan has years of lighting/electrical experience and was able to put in some light fixtures in the barn to brighten it up, we boarded up the windows in the hay/feed room and brought in some pallets.. At this point Johans work was getting really busy so I got to finishing the last little details, like stapling plastic around the upstairs windows to keep moisture and rain out, getting hay delivered, and the like..  Its been a work of love to say the least and we still have a ways to go, but I really think I could get used to this 😉

IMG_6540The old barn in the beginningFrosty Ponies in the morning