Cool McCool's Garage

Every so often we go through the mail here at “Cool McCool’s Garage”, and after the over-due statements from Morris Rose Auto Parts and the NAPA store are thrown out, we take the time to personally answer the interesting, and often embarrassingly personal, questions our readers ask.  Here’s one from JohnB in VB (wherever that is):

“Brian, do keep track of how much you spend on your projects, and if so, how much will this one total?”

JohnB, that’s a good, if somewhat nosey, question!  The answer is “No, I don’t, but periodically my wife takes away my credit card, and insists I stay away from Home Depot.”  I suspect that Kim would be able to tally it all up pretty precisely, but I have a pretty good idea.  My seat -of -the-pants, rough guesstimate would look like this:

Purchase price:  $100 (about $100 too much, maybe)

Sale of orignal “Panel-Ray” heater: $250

Profit from sale of 1955 Silverdome that was to have gotten the windows, sink, perfect Bargman door handle/latch, and other bits from the “Tini-Home:  $1,000.

So, before we even started, we were $1150 in the black on this trailer.  After several trips to Bontragers RV Surplus, Home Depot, and Richland Home Center, we’ve spent (OK, put on my VISA card)  about $1,500.  We have yet to get a 3/4 mattress, but those are $149 from Mattress Mart, and we need a pair of tires (used LT load range E if anybody has any), a 7 prong trailer plug for the trailer, some copper tubing for the LP plumbing, and little for misc. expendables, so lets say another $300, give or take.   We’re going to try to sell the original windows (the reason we bought it in the first place) on eBay, for whatever they’ll bring, and deduct that, so the total will be less than $1,000. 

Given the low wages and no benefits here at CMcG (and resultant sketchy work quality), labor costs are so low, we don’t have to count that in the finished product.   The daily whippings seem to have the crew motivated, and will continue untill morale improves. 

We strive to keep costs down here at CMcG, to help finance the next project in the que, the “free” ’47 Spartan Manor.  After we add fuel, new wheels and tires, wiring for temp. lights, pallet wrap to hold it together for the trip home, road-food, misc. emergency room visits and time incurred to get the thing home from its current location, 150 miles from  Cool McCool’s Garage world headquarters, it’ll probably equal the entire amount in the Tini-Home.