Looking for an alternative to expensive heated water buckets or fancy insulated water bucket covers?

If you want to make your own insulated horse water buckets, here’s a super cheap and easy DIY fix.

Do You Need Insulated Horse Water Buckets?

We live in North Carolina where winters are for the most part very mild.

But occasionally we get hit with lows in the teens.

This presents a problem for keeping our horses’ water from freezing!

I personally am not comfortable with using electric heated water buckets due to the fire risk. Our barn is quite a ways away from our house and there is no way I can monitor them closely enough.

I needed some way to keep the horses’ water from freezing on a 18 degree (F) night so I decided to DIY some insulated horse water buckets.

I am happy to report their water did NOT freeze!

I spent less than $20 insulating four buckets so this was a cheap solution as well.

Read on to learn how to do this yourself!

DIY Insulated Horse Water Buckets Materials

Here are the water buckets I wanted to insulate.

Just your standard horse barn water buckets.

I bought a roll of Reflectix at my local Lowes Home Improvement. It is essentially very sturdy foil bubble wrap with amazing insulating properties.

I bought the smallest roll (33 square feet) and it was about $17. I also bought a roll of cheap duct tape – any will do.

How To Make Your Insulated Buckets

I wrapped some Reflectix around the bucket (slightly at a angle since the bucket’s sides aren’t straight) and cut it.

I only overlapped it a few inches.

I then slid it down so the top was lined up with the underside of the top rim of the bucket and taped it together.

You can see how it has to be at an angle to match the shape of the bucket.

Then I started folding and taping up the underside of the bucket.

I taped the first piece to the bottom of the bucket so it wouldn’t move.

Here is a completed bottom of a bucket. You can see I was generous with the duct tape!

I then went around the bucket and secured any flaps with duct tape.

I also went around the rim and secured the top to the rim. Since this is what is holding the insulator on to the bucket, you want to make sure it is very secure.

I added some Gorilla Tape I had to the top of the buckets to make sure it held. I’m not sure this is necessary but I had it handy so I figured why not reinforce it!

It took me about an hour to wrap and tape all four buckets.

So far they have held up to several weeks of use!

Overall a very easy and cheap fix for insulated horse water buckets in the barn in the winter.

This method would work for any water you need to keep from freezing – for your dogs, cats, chickens, garden, etc.

Horse show jumps are surprisingly expensive. You could easily spend thousands of dollars on just a few jumps!

Here’s how to make your own jumps at home for only $35 each.

I’m not an accomplished woodworker by any stretch but I was able to make this basic horse show jump in an afternoon with minimal help.

Read on to learn how!

Gather materials for your DIY Horse Show Jumps

I think the best thing about this horse show jumps project is that you can get all of the materials at your local building supply store.

No ordering from an online horse company – just head to your local Home Depot or Lowe’s!

Here is what you will need for one jump with standards and a pair of cross rails (prices are estimates):

• Two 8 ft. landscaping timbers ($8)
• One 8 ft. 4×4 pressure treated timber ($17)
• One 8 ft. 2×4 pressure treated lumber ($7)
• Three feet of 1/4 inch nylon rope ($1)
• Two carriage bolts 1/4 in. by 6 in. long ($1)
• One 2 in. x 2 in. x 36 in. pressure treated square end baluster (porch railing) ($1)
• 16 exterior screws at least 2 inches long (we had these hanging around)

The total for these supplies at my local store was under $35.

Even better, I was able to transport all of the supplies in my SUV.

Make all of your cuts & sand

After you get the materials for your horse show jumps home, you can cut the lumber to the sizes you will need.

First, we cut the 4×4 in half. These will be the uprights of the jump standards (supports).

Then, we cut the 2×4 into 8 equal parts (so roughly 1 ft each). You don’t want any sharp edges so I marked one corner with the angle cut I wanted and let my husband cut. These will be the feet of the standards.

Then he cut four 2×2 inch blocks from the balustrade. These will become part of the jump cups that hold the rails up.

You’ll want to do some light sanding to make sure there aren’t any sharp edges or splinters that will get you later.

The sanding took me under 10 minutes.

Measure & drill holes in the 4×4 standards

You will use the carriage bolts as the holders for your jump cups.

We used a 3/8 inch spade bit to drill the holes. It is the perfect size since the bolts are 1/4 inch thick.

Next I measured out the holes in the 4x4s for the jump cups.

Be sure to use a square to line them up in the middle of the 4×4 to make everything work!

I started 12 inches up from what will rest on the ground and put a hole every six inches up to 3 feet.

That was five holes total on each standard to drill with the 3/8 in. spade bit.

Here is one of the 4x4s with the holes drilled.

DIY Horse Show Jumps: Attach feet to upright

Next you will attach four feet to each upright in the pattern shown above.

Use your exterior screws to attach the feet to your upright.

I used two screws per foot and made sure they were flush with the bottom of the 4×4.

Drill holes in your blocks and assemble jump cups

If I remember correctly we used the same 3/8 in. spade bit to drill holes through the center of the wooden blocks.

Then cut the nylon rope in half and thread one piece through two of the wooden blocks.

I used double fisherman knots to make a loop in the end of the rope to I could hang it over the ends of the carriage bolts.

There is likely a better way to do this but it is working fine for us.

You want the blocks to be slightly tipped in so they make a stable support for the pole while also letting it roll off easily if the horse catches it with his hoof.

Assemble and admire!

Bring your landscape timbers over to place them into the jumps cups and admire your new jump!

I was so happy with how our DIY horse show jumps turned out!

Since all of this wood is pressure treated you don’t need to paint it, but you could of course.

If you want a taller standard just use a 10 or 12 foot 4×4 instead. If you do I may also suggest longer feet (such as 18 inches each) since the upright will be heavier.

Any questions? Please leave a comment below!

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• DIY Horse Stall Name Plates

How to DIY some cute horse stall name plates for only $1!

I have been wanting stall signs for our little horse barn but there was no way I was going to pay $25 each to have them made. That’s just crazy!

I found wooden plaques at the craft store for less than $1 each and went to town. These are the perfect easy horse stall name plates.

Get a cheap wooden plaque from the craft store

We made a trip to Michaels and found a bunch of options for pre-cut wooden plaques.

My daughter picked this oval plaque that measured roughly 6.5″ x 5″.

It was a good size for our stall doors. You can find thicker ones with beveled edges if you want to pay a little more.

With our coupon (always use a coupon at the craft store!) they cost 70 cents each. We bought three.

Get out the acrylic paints

Next we dragged out our stash of acrylic craft paints.

If you have a certain color in mind you can buy a bottle of paint for less than $1 at Michaels.

We applied one coat and let it dry.

DIY Horse Stall Name Plates: Create names

I used my Cricut Joy and the Design Space program to create the names for the plaques.

I used permanent black vinyl and some transfer tape to move them to the signs.

If you don’t have a way to make the vinyl you could definitely use stencils and paint to get the names on the signs!

Attach twine with hot glue (optional)

Since I wanted to see how the stall sign would look hanging, I attached a short piece of twine with hot glue.

You will definitely want to use high temp hot glue to fasten it securely.

Here’s how the horse stall name plates looked hanging.

We decided to attach the other stall signs with high strength stick-ems instead of hanging them.

We ended up liking how they looked like this better than hanging and changed Harry’s sign.

It’s definitely just personal preference.

$1 DIY Horse Stall Name Plates Summary

Our horses finally know which stall is theirs!

Any questions about creating your own DIY stall signs? Leave a comment below!