A rider who built her own stables from scratch, from pallets, by her own hand has now created a beautiful tack room to finish the project.
H&H reported two years ago on the work of Clara Fingerhut, who wanted to put in her dream stables at her new home in Brittany, France, but could not afford the hefty price tag. So she took apart pallets and built them herself.
Clara said her first priority was the stables and once they were built, she could take her time a bit more on the tack room. She wanted a concrete base, and a stronger roof so she could store things on top.
“So it wasn’t as simple as the stables,” she said. “I was so lucky because the landscape gardener who concreted the posts in for the stables said if I made the frame, if he got a client he was concreting for, and had any spare, he could bring the truck straight to me.
“Then, eight months later, I got a call to say the truck was on its way; I had almost forgotten so had to make the frame quickly! But then I could finish the tack room.”
Clara again set to separating pallets into their component planks, and screwing them together to build an outer room, and a smaller inner one that is lockable, for the tack itself.
“It was the same technique, although this was double cladding as I wanted to insulate it,” she said. “The flooring came from my dad as he was putting in a new kitchen so he ripped out the old floor and I had it but I made the cupboard doors from old window shutters, I made the doors, and a bench for storage, which has my rugs in it. The only other thing that isn’t pallets is the ceiling as I wanted it to be sturdy enough to store my feed and bedding on.
“It doesn’t look that professional when you’re up close; some of it isn’t quite straight by the skirting boards as the planks aren’t all the same but I’m really happy with it; it’s a nice place to spend time.”
One of the windows looks at the school, which by chance also evolved from planks. Clara could not afford the waxed sand she wanted, as this would have cost €30,000 just for the surface but found a company that supplies a surface made partly from a type of wood chip – one that does not turn to mulch when it gets wet.
“It cost about €13,000 in total, including the fencing and drainage, and it was only afterwards I found out the wood chips were from pallets too, it was very fitting!” she said.
The school gate is also made from some extra-long pallets Clare happened to find.
“They’re used to deliver big windows on,” she said. “The man I got them from, another landscape gardener, had a job next to this company and said he’d spoken to the man so I went and it was like pallet heaven! If you’d said to me two years ago I’d be in heaven in somewhere with extra-long pallets, I wouldn’t have believed you!”
And now the project is complete, Clara added, she can start looking at the house.
“Now I can put some money into it so it’s warm in winter,” she said. “I’ve got a boyfriend now who lives with me and he thought I was nuts, I’d put all that time and money into the stables and nothing into the house but priorities!”
In total, Clara thinks she has used 200 pallets and 15,000 screws in her dream yard, the original H&H piece on which went all over the world and was read by thousands and thousands of people.
“It went mad, it seemed such a simple concept to me, I never expected that!” she said. “I’ve been given the nickname ‘the Pallet Queen’.”
And Clara had a good few pallets left over, from which she has built shelving units and three beds.
“Once you start, it becomes an addiction!” she said.
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