The Butlers are well known in the horse arena. Peppy and her 2 daughters are involved with the Middle Tennessee Pony Club and the United States Mounted Games Association. Both girls have ridden internationally and are have qualified to represent USA later this fall. Dave Butler is the owner and manager of Pet Vet in Franklin TN.
Peppy Butler’s 13-year-old daughter was tired of dragging gaming equipment across a 2.5-acre field from the horse arena to the barn every day. That’s why she asked her parents for a storage barn for Christmas.
Peppy agreed. With two daughters participating in mounted game events during the summer, it meant a lot of practice and a lot of equipment to organize and store. A storage barn near the arena would be just the ticket to save time and energy and keep the bending poles, cones, tennis balls and other specialized equipment out of the weather.
“Luckily” the Butlers found Hilltop Structures and ordered a quality storage shed, to the relief of Peppy and her daughters who no longer have to “manually haul all that equipment to the barn every day.” But the storage shed would be just the beginning of structures that would improve life at the family’s 80-acre farm just south of Nashville, Tennessee.
While visiting Hilltop’s site, they noticed many other quality structures the business offers – horse barns, chicken coops, utility sheds and cabins. Over the next two years, Peppy and her husband Dave, a veterinarian, would add seven more structures to their family farm.
First to arrive after the storage building were three run-in sheds to provide a quality home for the family’s 15 horses and ponies. The Butlers added electricity and ceiling fans to the barns and opened the windows in the back for air flow. “The air moves over the horses, and the flies don’t bother them,” Peppy says. “The horses love it.”
Besides good ventilation, the run-in sheds ensure shade and weather protection; before, the Butlers had to keep their horses in stalls and watch them closely when the weather got bad or hot. “We can now leave the horses out all the time, and they can come and go,” Peppy says. “And we don’t have to clean stalls. It has lightened the work load tremendously.”
To match the new horse barns, the Butlers added a copula to their existing barn. Next they purchased a chicken coop for their 13 laying hens. Since her previous flock of chickens had been killed by hawks, Peppy was especially thankful for the sturdy chicken wire that covered the door and bottom of the coop. “I love knowing the chickens are safe at night.”
By then the Butlers were ready for their next structure – a run-in shed utilized into a three-bay garage. Using a specialized machine called a mule, Hilltop owner Dave King maneuvered the garage into a tight space between three large trees. “People think it was built in and can hardly believe Dave was able to get the building in,” Peppy says. “The mule on wheels allows a structure to be placed almost anywhere.”
After cementing the three-bay garage, the family moved in their four-wheelers, dune buggies and farm equipment. “Everything except the tractor fits into it,” Peppy says. To match their horse barns, they added a three-foot overhang to the garage, something Peppy highly recommends for any run-in shed or horse barn. “It adds a tremendous amount of shade at the right time of the day and also increases the usable size. And it’s very inexpensive to add on.”
Placing a structure near the house was next on Peppy’s list. She wanted something to replace the “pull-down-stairs” attic space in their home and is now enjoying a large new storage barn that is “much easier to access and so much easier to organize.”
A chicken coop turned goat house arrived last on the farm for pet goats Pete and Fritz. Hilltop customized the coop by eliminating the nesting boxes, widening the doorway and making the ramp a little bigger than normal. One of the sheds had to be moved to put the goat house where it needed to be, but that wasn’t a problem. “Dave was able to come out with his equipment and easily move one of our sheds to make room for the goat house,” Peppy remembers.
To bring a cohesive look to the farm, the Butlers asked Hilltop to paint each of their structures to match and to use matching tin roofs. “The color we started with when painting our first equipment shed was a color they normally wouldn’t be able to put on the horse barns, but Dave was able to find a stain that matched,” Peppy says.
It was that of workability and customer care that kept the Butlers coming back to Hilltop Structures for more. “Dave and his family all have been so easy to communicate with,” Peppy says. “Dave’s always been on time. I can only say good things about them.”
The Butlers aren’t finished yet. Knowing the payment requirements are reasonable, they have their eye on a Hilltop cabin and look forward to adding one to their property. Hilltop had been there to lighten their work load, meet their storage needs and provide quality housing for their animals. Now it was time to let them bring rest, relaxation and great family times to their Tennessee farmstead!