Page 7 - AEF-AlbertaBits_Summer-2025

The unique 18-foot
alleyway has enough room
to drive a skid steer, or
store hay. In the summer,
the walls come down half-
way, making the space
more airy.
ties, and installed lockers for boarders — over 50 horses live
on their property, most of them boarders. Hoogendoorn and
her family did most of the work themselves, although they
hired a contractor to build the arena.
“You think, oh we’ll gut it, put stalls up — then when you
start doing the nitty gritty, it’s a lot of details,” she says. “I
guess you kind of just do it, right?” Despite her inexperience,
she enjoyed the renovation process, finding the work of
transforming the barn rewarding.
The renovated barn has some quirks that purpose-built
horse barns do not — the alleyway in High Thorn’s barn is
about 18 feet wide.
“I don’t know if there’s many barns that have an alley as
wide as ours, which is cool,” she adds.
While the process was long and there were bumps in
the road, Hoogendoorn says, if you have the opportunity to
convert a dairy barn into a horse barn — you should.
“If I could do it over again, there’s a few things I would
change, but not that much,” she says. “Once you put your
mind to it, you can get a lot done.”
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