[chemteach]

I stained mine and used polyurethane.

[tasia]

EXACTLY!

There are lots of nice barns in my area and in order for me to attract better boarding prices I have to make the barn more attractive. I am working on "curb appeal" and also need to do some interior beautification.

I figure if I invest a couple of hundred in paint, it will pay of in the long run by allowing me to charge higher boarding prices and be more competetive with the nicer barns in the area.

I would just pressure wash. How long is your lease? Having everything, barn, fencing, grounds being safe and offering quality care would go a long way to attracting boarders. I understand wanting to spruce everything up. But what if the owner decides everything looks so nice, I bet I can charge more?

[dmalbone]

Dmalbone - That is what a barn is supposed to look like How nice!

Thank you! And thanks Amwrider. We only have a little barn so I was able to do all of it in a relatively short amount of time and $$$. I love my little barn though.

[inquisitive]

We did marine spar varnish in the wash rack and a polyurethane in the aisle and stalls.



http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pi...&id=1075391436

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pi...&id=1075391436

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pi...&id=1075391436

[Trixie]

DMalbone and inquisitive, those look lovely!

Keep posting your pretty barn photos, it's making me think of what I'd like to build someday

[ayrabz]

Inquisitive: Your place is SCAREY pristine and GORGEOUS. I swear! I can't imagine a horse ever walked thru that aisle, or into that washrack!

(REALLY nice!..does it stay that way 24/7? I'm glad I'm not the stable boy!)

question: the window in the washrack. is it the photo, or...is the window actually lower? than typical solid wall/kickboard height?

....and, personally, for my little ghetto barn:
I'm still considering if I want to JUST paint the 'trim' and cross x's, etc of the doors/frames ....because, I feel if I left it all 'wood' that the 'chew marks' and 'nicks' would show less.... I'm still debating that one.

[2ndyrgal]

Unless you want to keep painting, often. I worked the Standardbred race circuit for years and I wish I had a dollar for every hour I spent painting every race track backside, fairgrounds, etc, stalls we moved into. White with red trim. Looked tuff as hell.... for about a week, and very labor intensive. Not to mention, very expensive.

I have a 12 stall barn now, the beams are old, the wood is new. The barn aisle is 140 feet long, stall fronts are half walls with one horizontal barn on top (so they can't chew) and stall gates. All I've ever done is spray on Thompsons water seal with a pump sprayer every spring, then pressure wash once a summer, and the stall fronts are a lovely color and look as new as they did 7years ago.

Stain and varnish are really, really expensive. Make and keep your place as immaculate as possible, and spend money on fabulous hay, safe fences, and generous bedding. You'll find those are the things that the higher end clients are looking for, not shiny stall fronts. Mats in the stalls will save you on bedding and keep the horses cleaner. Get as big of a hot water heater as you can fit so you don't run out of hot water. Invest in those types of things first.
I think most on this bb would agree, it doesn't matter how snazzy the barn is if the hay is low quality and not enough fed, the stalls and buckets aren't cleaned often, fence is tacked together piece meal, footing in arena is bad, etc. We've all kept our horses places that LOOKED great, until we started looking past the cosmetic stuff.

[KrazyTBMare]

Question:

If the wood is varnished/sealed/poly'd - does it make it harder for spiders to attach their cob webs? I have the Florida house spider all over the barn... which ok whatever I dont mind as it IS a barn, but the wood that was used for the walls from the first owner is not exactly a rough out board but it is NOT smooth like a finished piece of wood. So the roughness really makes a great surface for their webs (they are the kind that spread their webs flat over a big surface) and it is a PITA to clean.

Everyone has LOVELY barns. Super jealous.

[VarsityHero4]

Question:

If the wood is varnished/sealed/poly'd - does it make it harder for spiders to attach their cob webs? I have the Florida house spider all over the barn... which ok whatever I dont mind as it IS a barn, but the wood that was used for the walls from the first owner is not exactly a rough out board but it is NOT smooth like a finished piece of wood. So the roughness really makes a great surface for their webs (they are the kind that spread their webs flat over a big surface) and it is a PITA to clean.

Everyone has LOVELY barns. Super jealous.

Mine is polyurethane and it does NOT keep away the spider webs/cob webs

[Spike]

Dmalbone:

What brand/type of varnish did you used to get that glossy look? I have almost finished to stain the wood in my barn but I want to get that easy to wash and high end look and can't decide on the varnish!

[dmalbone]

Dmalbone:

What brand/type of varnish did you used to get that glossy look? I have almost finished to stain the wood in my barn but I want to get that easy to wash and high end look and can't decide on the varnish!

I used Helmsman semi-gloss spar urethane. It's actually only two coats. I thought I would need more. If I were redoing it I would use gloss just because I LOVE the shiny. I threw it on with a roller in the winter (temps were way below what they should have been for staining and varnishing) so I didn't get the best coverage (read: operator error. )

[romniE1]

Like they say, the beauty is in the eyes ..... You should do whatever you think looks better. You will get pretty much the same result I would say. Before you made a decision, I think it is important to know the difference between varnish and stain. Varnish gives the glossy look, and stain and paint do not.

[romniE1]

Like they say, the beauty is in the eyes ..... You should do whatever you think looks better. You will get pretty much the same result I would say. Before you made a decision, I think it is important to know the difference between varnish and stain. Varnish gives the glossy look, and stain and paint do not.

As a follow up, here is a good articles that I found on the topic of stain vs varnish. I hope it serves someone. Feel like contributing to the community today lol.

[Tom King]

They have wood bleaching solutions at like Lowes or Home Depot. Im not sure exactly how they differ from a bleach diluted mixture but I used the premade product.

Put it into a landscape sprayer (like for pesticide and what not on flowers, etc), spray the wood, and then use a pressure washer to spray it off. Not only takes off the dirt but also any mold/mildew/moss/etc.

I then used a deck stain that protects the wood from mildew and fading due to UV rays. I personally used a semi transparent as I wanted a more opaque look but to still see the wood grain. For my doors, I have the X's on the front, so I used the black stain on the X and around the edge of the door
(http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r...88002_0001.jpg)

I used this but obviously whatever you have available (http://www.olympic.com/Stain/Find_Pr...protector.aspx)

I was going to stain or varnish the rest of the wood but never got around to it (lots of work). Plus I like the look of the natural wood. But if I had the time and money, I think a clear varnish would look nice.

If you go with the cleaning and then varnish, do the older oak part first. Maybe with the bleaching/cleaning it will lighten up and then when you apply the varnish, you can see what color it comes to and then try to get close with a stain for the inside parts of the doors?

Wood bleach is for lightening the color of wood. It's not what you want for cleaning. For bleach run through a pressure washer, I buy the large jugs of germicidal bleach from Home Depot. Start at the bottom and go up. If you start at the top, sometimes is might leave streaks that won't come out. I know it's counterintuitive, but that's the way it works.

I had the chance just yesterday to compare how eight year old lifetime guarantee paint from Lowes and Sherwin-Williams compared under a pressure washer. SW was twice the price, but it would not come off from the pressure washer, while we had to be careful with the part that was painted with Lowes paint. The Lowes paint was on the ceiling of the dog porch, and the SW on the fascia-both yellow pine, which actually was subjected to more sun and weather.

We've found Sikkens to be the most durable stain on docks here, so that should prove true on anything else.

Realize that polyurethane varnish is not really waterproof. Marine varnish is. If you leave water on poly, it will soak in and make the finish cloudy. It will dry out again, but it hurts the life of it.

[mpsbarnmanager]

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?f...type=1&theater

This is our new barn. We did the stalls ourselves. I wanted to put hi gloss varnish over the stain, but DH said it would flake and look gross over time, stain alone is lower maintenance.

[clanter]

Yes I am leasing it but hopint this will be a long-term comittment. My last place I leased I was there for 5 years.

I do boarding, lessons and train. I want to spiffy up the place and give it a face-lift to make it look more "high-end" for business purposes.

I see your location as Tampa.... look at the roof rafters... from the photo you posted I do not see hurricane clips

[Kate66]

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?f...type=1&theater

This is our new barn. We did the stalls ourselves. I wanted to put hi gloss varnish over the stain, but DH said it would flake and look gross over time, stain alone is lower maintenance.

I'm quite surprised at the number of varnish advocates. Partly it MIT be regional, but here, in tx, iwould probably avoid varnish because in the heat and humidity it will crack and flake in no time. Here I would stain with Thompsons or something similar. The semi transparent or colored would give it a nice consistency