Barn Renovation

I've been ill for the past few days and staring at something for a long while is really tiring and gives me one hell of a headache, so today I looked for an easy, simple thing to do that wouldn't strain my eyes. Years ago, my grandmother's husband built me this wooden barn. It's classic scale with four stalls, and beautifully made :) I've been planning to re-paint it for a while, though, as I'm not fond of the wooden floor and pastel colour

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The stalls are lovely and roomy, though they're a bit dark, as my lovely mare Gwen demonstrates. I'm planning to buy those battery-operated LED lights you can stick on wall and put them in the ceiling. But I might have to paint the glass orange or yellow as I think their light is very white and harsh.

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A couple of weeks ago my mum and I were going through old boxes, and found this lovely sandstone paint, from the days when my mum still painted. They must be around ten years old by now, and were dry and chunky when I opened them, but a bit of water and stirring quickly brought them back to life.

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They're textured with what seems like tiny bits of sand, so they have a proper stone feel to them. I decided to paint the ground with the darker grey and the light blue bar with the lighter tan colour. I'm not sure what to do about the doors, yet, but I might re-do them entirely as they're very, very thick and don't open all the way through, as you can see here:

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The paint takes a while to dry so today I only managed to do two coats of the dark grey:

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Tomorrow I'll do the final coat and perhaps sponge some bits of diluted black and white paint, just to give it some different shades and make it more interesting. The unsightly holes by the doors were made when I had tying rings there, but they were too big so I removed them. I'll make new, smaller ones soon. I'd like to add small decorations and elements to make them more realistic. If you have any suggestions, please let me know!

Wow, looks very nice with all these details! Thanks for showing!

Thank you, Yvette! :)

It's not 100% complete yet, but the paint applies so thinly and takes so long to dry that I'll call it done for now and take a break from the painting. But it already looks very different and, in my opinion, much better! I don't know why my photos are so grainy, though - think it's because I can't get good light where the stables are.

The doors have little splatters from my enthusiastic use of brushes but it doesn't bother me much seeing as they'll be replaced anyway.

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I've added the tie rings as well :)

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It's lovely! Thank you for showing!
Did you add fur to the puppy on the last picture?

Beautiful! You've done a great job Love the puppy too!

The sandstone paint looks great.
I would paint the front of the floor with that paint as well, so it's all in the same colour and you don't see anything of the old wooden floor anymore.
Your grandmother's husband did a wonderful job on the stable. All those small details must have taken him a lot of time.

What a fabulous stable

Your grandmother's husband must have loved you very much...it must have taken ages to make all that great detail


I agree, the floor should not be "wood"...it gets slippery for horse shoes when wet

What colour will you paint the doors ?  
The indoors should perhaps be the sand-paint...perhaps with a thin layer of whitewash, - it kills bacteria from horse dung, they say
The bars should be metal, I think. Horse will eat wooden bars, won't they ?  

Thankyou for sharing, I can't wait to see how you proceed    

Very nice stable, it was no doubt a big job to make it

I can't stop looking !!!!
Ohhh, I wished I could make somthing just a fraction as nice, - but of course I can't
I would probably cut a finger off or worse

When I was a child, we made stables from old shoe boxes, and my mom was always ready with the first aid box.
My best friend's father was a doctor, so it was not allowed to play with sharp knives in their place

Thank you, everyone!!

Ana wrote:

Did you add fur to the puppy on the last picture?

I did! It was a few years ago and it doesn't look great, though. He's the Schleich Golden Retriever puppy!

Bloodrayne wrote:

The sandstone paint looks great.
I would paint the front of the floor with that paint as well, so it's all in the same colour and you don't see anything of the old wooden floor anymore.

Yes, I thought of doing that, but since it probably won't show up in photos of little scenes, I didn't bother. I'll probably paint it anyway, to make it neater, but I'm running out of that sandstone paint.

SUSANNE wrote:

What colour will you paint the doors ?  
The indoors should perhaps be the sand-paint...perhaps with a thin layer of whitewash, - it kills bacteria from horse dung, they say  
The bars should be metal, I think. Horse will eat wooden bars, won't they ?  

Thankyou for sharing, I can't wait to see how you proceed    

I'm not sure yet - perhaps red, or I'll just stain the wood, like it is now. First I need to figure out how to take these ones out without destroying the hinges!
I won't paint the indoors as the roof doesn't come out; I'd have to paint them through the door, my wrist already complains enough without me putting it through such an ordeal!
Ooh, indeed. If we keep it wooden for too long the horses will have lots of fun chewing it all up! I'll have to paint them, then. Maybe silver, with dry-brushed black to make it a bit more interesting? Or red, if I end up painting the doors in that colour. :)

I used to make stables out of cardboard boxes when I was young, too! I had a whole room to myself and had a big barn for my schleich horses, with stables, and an arena and pastures. Ah, to go back to those days!

Ahhh ! Red sounds great

But still, wood-colour makes it look more authentic. Sort of makes a distan ce to the plastic stables we see these days
But then, - we are different generations, so perhaps I am wrong

Susanne, wooden doors painted red and stone bars are used very often in Eastern Portugal's architecture -

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Hence why I thought of painting the barn in that way. I think they look charming.

Yes !! You are so right ! It is beautyful

Wonderful stable!! And an interesting architecture! Lovely to see a classic size stable, it't not seen very often! And the puppy is cute too!!