Cool McCool's Garage

Armed with good intentions, I set out this morning for the hardware store to get glass setting adhesive so I could put the windows in the Tini-Home.  I should have realized when I got to the counter and didn’t have my wallet that the day wasn’t going to go as I hoped, and simply turned around, gone home and gotten back in bed.  No, the folks at the store know me, and knew I’d back at least once to get stuff I forgot, and told me to take the three tubes of Loctite adhesive, and pay for them on the next trip. 

My plan, ambitious as it was, included not only setting all the windows, but stripping all the old paint and sealant from the aluminum corner trim, cutting the old hitch of the tongue, welding on the new 2 and 5/16 hitch on, getting the new jack mounted, and maybe even grinding all the old paint of the tongue and painting it glossy black before mounting the polished diamond plate cover goes on.  Right…

The first thing I did was to plug the trailer in so I could clean up a bit inside.  When I plugged the trailers power cord into a shop plug, I heard the distinctive “snap” of a circuit breaker.  What the…?  Checking inside, no lights, no power.  I snapped both breakers “ON”, still nothing.  Checked the breaker to in the shop for the plugs on that wall, and it was tripped.   Curious and curious-er.

After over an hour of increasing frustration and de-moralizing trouble shooting, I determined that I’d either run a screw or a staple attaching the skin into the wiring from the A/C plug that feeds the light over the bed, the exterior plug, and the plug in the pantry for charging electronic gizmo’s.  Which of course is inaccessible in the walls/ceiling.  This was bad for me, but good for Richland Home Center, because it meant I had to go back to :

a) get some more 14-2 wire and misc. stuff to rewire that circuit, and

b) pay for the stuff I’d gotten earlier.

It ended up not being too hard to fix, I simply abandoned the offending (offended?) shorted wire, and ran a new feed under the bed to the right side of the trailer.  It was time-consuming, but ended up actually an easy fix.

By the time I was almost done, Kim came over to the shop, and helped me install the front window.  This was a two person job, and was much harder than I thought it would be.  She stuck it out, despite the cursing and bad attitude I was sporting after the wiring fiasco, and I must say the front window, the only one we got mounted, looks pretty good in the new skin.  The  other windows will be MUCH easier to install, as they mount with screws thru their exterior frames, so I can get them in without any help.  At least, that’s the plan…

After the window was mounted, and sealed up tight, I straighten up a bit inside, as it was so messy and disorganized that I couldn’t lay anything down anywhere without losing it in the sawdust, mess of extension cords, tools, and miscellaneous trailer parts.  Much better.

Tomorrow, as they say, is another day, and I HOPE I can get the remaining windows mounted, the new hitch on without any more unexpected disasters or delays.  Kim stopped at “Mattress-Mart”, and explained our dilemma with the bed, in that there’s no way to get a coil spring mattress (with its rigid wire frame) folded up and crammed into the back of the trailer.  No problem, a 5″ foam mattress that we can fold up and stuff in the “bedroom” is on its way!

Here are a couple more pictures of “Cool McCool”, still frustrated after a very stressful day, wiping excess sealant from around the beautiful new front window.  Kim pointed out that I create most of the drama and frustration myself, and of course, she’s right.  May be SHE is the real “Cool McCool”!