Thursday, February 11, 2016

Trailer Upgrades!

Since I have the best husband ever, he upgraded my truck and made additions to my trailer back in January. The week he worked on the trailer just happened to be the coldest week of January. Oops.

First off, I had to empty my entire trailer for husband to do the work. This also meant de-stink-bugging everything (I must have pulled hundreds out of my stuff).

Copious amounts of stuff. (not pictured: water jugs, broom, pitchfork, standing saddle rack...)
How did it all fit in a 4'x6' tack room? (a couple items go in the horse compartment)

After Husband finished the trailer, I had to sort through it all and decide what was going back in... obviously the muck cart, pitchfork, brooms, trunk went back in. Things like: hunt breastplate with standing martingale attachment, XC boots, never used open front boots, and XC crash vest were sent to the horsey boxes in the basement for storage. Things like my horsey medical supplies needed condensed and sorted. Broken and empty bottles needed to be thrown out, same with broken halters and torn blanket bags. My super awesome rain coat was sent to the closet because it fills with stink bugs in my trailer and so I refuse to wear it.

One complete set of jump stuff (saddle, bridle, 5-point breastplate, SMBs, ankle boots) remains in the trailer for trail riding.
There are two additional bridle hooks next to the door, I just didn't take a picture of them.

The horse compartment. No worries, everything is securely bungeed and ratcheted in!
Fuzzy edges due to it being a sunny day reflecting on snow after Snowstorm Jonas.

Ok, on to the improvements! (come on, a clean and tidy trailer is an improvement right?)

Who could forget when Husband messaged me and said my tackroom door fell off?

With all of the in and out of the tackroom in frigid temps, the hanging-on-by-a-thread door fell off. It had been allowed to slam open in a previous life, which meant the hinges pulled the screws mostly out of the framing, it hung crooked (and closed hard). Husband made a new oak frame (shown above) to replace the rotten one. He added some metal edging where the door had lost its original.

Bam! The door hangs straight and closes easily with its new insides!

The next major upgrade? New radio system for the truck. We have trailer cams, and I used to use a screen with an ethernet cable that ran out the door to a phone jack on the bumper. Now it's all built into the truck! He also added a camera to the back of the trailer so we can back up in the dark without hitting anything (and stare at tailgaters), and then he added a back up camera to the truck to make it easier to hook up.

The screen turns on automatically when the truck is put in reverse. The big red button is an override so we can look at the cameras while traveling forward. The little black buttons are toggles and then direct buttons for each camera. This taped on system is going to go away in the next few weeks- husband is ordering a custom face plate for the empty cubby behind the buttons so the buttons are locked in place (and so it looks nicer).

Another good thing is the loss of the ethernet cable and phone jack at the bumper:

Real plugs!

So the big plug closer to the hitch is the electric, but the smaller plug to the left is for the cameras in the trailer and the one behind the trailer! You can also see the truck's back up camera attached to the top of the license plate.

New radio system all lit up (coming home from the last show). It's Penn radio!

Now for photographic proof of just how bright it is inside the trailer, mostly thanks to two truck batteries in the tackroom (which Husband charged the piss out of and they seem to be back in good working shape!). When not hooked up to the truck, I can use them to create an electrical current the same as what's in your house to light up curly cue light bulbs (which are protected from horses by metal cages). Husband also replaced the small, not-as-bright, trailer lights with LED so they used less power.

All the lights on. Every light in and on the trailer. Obnoxious, haha.

Husband replaced the ramp light with a super bright LED flood light.
Now I think this is a welcoming box for the horse to climb into in the dark!

Tack room- filthy from a day of muddy parking.

Lighting improvements:

Look! I can see the hitch in the dark to unhook!

LED flood lights point backwards to allow for night time tying to the trailer (something I haven't done since 4H!), nighttime packing (I used them to pack for the last horse show since I packed in the dark!), or help in seeing what's behind you when backing up in the dark. They automatically go on when the truck is put in reverse (only when the truck lights are on). There are also toggle switches in the tackroom for when it's not hooked up to the truck.

View from behind the trailer with the lights on.

A more normal view of what it would look like without all the other lights on, haha.

The other thing he added were the orange tag lights you see by the wheel wells.
There are 4- one on each end of the wheel wells.

Husband did a good job!

12 comments:

  1. That officially qualifies as pimped out. Nice!!

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  2. Damn, nobody's gonna miss you in the dark!

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    1. Haha yea, esp when they're following us. The horizonal red LED above the doors? That sucker is probably the most obnoxious and bright light I've ever seen on the road. Can't miss it! It was one of Husband's adds when we bought the trailer. I was concerned because it was a black trailer with minimal lights. Not minimal anymore!

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  3. i am seriously jealous of all those lights haha, but grimace in solidarity at all the stink bugs... where do they all come from?!?

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    1. I found a stink bug nest in my stuff in my trailer. Gross. Last year they weren't so bad- spending January in mostly negative temps seem to have killed a lot of them. Husband wanted me to put my stuff in the house, I told him no way, those stink bugs come back to life and I don't want them crawling around inside. Granted, the garage isn't much better (it's attached) but at least the temps in there hover around 40 degrees instead of 65? Sure enough, as I emptied stuff, stink bugs he said, "Oh those are dead" came back to life and started crawling!

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  4. What an awesome set up!! You guys will be getting to all those dressage shows this year in style :)

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  5. I have total trailer light envy!

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  6. This looks awesome, what an excellent husband indeed! Our trailer needs a bit of TLC but it's finding the time to do it. I have some holiday booked so I might tackle the task then, I feel inspired to work on it now I've seen this post, thank you! I wish you all the best and success with any upcoming shows!

    Cody Thornton @ Mobilevalley Ltd

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  7. The inside of the trailer is starting to look wonderful! It looks like there’s plenty of room for storage and a space for a horse to travel in the trailer as well. The lights on the ramp look like they will make it very easy to see as you are loading and unloading when it's dark.

    Kourtney Heard @ Hansen Adkins

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