RSKY
Veteran Member
- Joined
- Oct 5, 2003
- Messages
- 2,444
- Tractor
- Kioti CK20S
The three most expensive words in the English language are 'might as well' !!
I first heard this twenty years ago when a friend was building a house and I asked him how much a square foot it was costing him. We were thinking about building at the time. His reply was that it depended on what kind of front door you put in the house. He and his wife had argued about the front door and she won. She said they 'might as well' put in what she wanted while building. The door, side lites and other work ended up costing around $5000 and so added two dollars per square foot to the total cost of the house.
It was a very nice front door!
Fast forward twenty years to today.
We are building a covered patio in our back yard. Gonna have a concrete slab with one of those carport thingies on it. Wife didn't want one of those "ugly things in my back yard"! But we found a company that makes them with boxed eaves, gabled ends, and vertical roofing. They look good. Took out the brick patio I spent an entire summer building by myself twenty years ago. It was 16' by 16' and not big enough to have our growing family picnic on. Plus it sat in the sun. We set a budget of $5000-6000 for the project. Got estimates, and hired a contractor. Gonna be a month until they got here. Now they are here and putting up the forms to pour a slab.
The new patio started out as 21 x 20. Then it grew to 21' x 22' because we 'might as well' make it a little wider, won't cost that much more. Then we decided we 'might as well' make it longer too, so since the awnings come in 5' sections the size went to 26 x 22. But the metal carport type awnings need extra space so the slab has to be 27' x 23'. The extra size on the awning is 'only' $500 more. The extra size on the pad is 'only' $300 more. But the side the slab is extending takes more fill so that is $400 more for an extra 20 tons of gravel. But the old sidewalks don't work so we 'might as well' have a couple more new ones put in. And we are getting older so we 'might as well' have the one remaining usable sidewalk torn out and replaced with a new one that does not have a step. While the concrete guy is here we 'might as well' have a new slab poured in front on my shop. And we 'might as well' have another sidewalk poured alongside the shop to the second door.
Suddenly our $5000 project has 'might as welled' up to nearly $10000.
Oh well, we 'might as well' enjoy it now. We're not getting any younger.
RSKY
I first heard this twenty years ago when a friend was building a house and I asked him how much a square foot it was costing him. We were thinking about building at the time. His reply was that it depended on what kind of front door you put in the house. He and his wife had argued about the front door and she won. She said they 'might as well' put in what she wanted while building. The door, side lites and other work ended up costing around $5000 and so added two dollars per square foot to the total cost of the house.
It was a very nice front door!
Fast forward twenty years to today.
We are building a covered patio in our back yard. Gonna have a concrete slab with one of those carport thingies on it. Wife didn't want one of those "ugly things in my back yard"! But we found a company that makes them with boxed eaves, gabled ends, and vertical roofing. They look good. Took out the brick patio I spent an entire summer building by myself twenty years ago. It was 16' by 16' and not big enough to have our growing family picnic on. Plus it sat in the sun. We set a budget of $5000-6000 for the project. Got estimates, and hired a contractor. Gonna be a month until they got here. Now they are here and putting up the forms to pour a slab.
The new patio started out as 21 x 20. Then it grew to 21' x 22' because we 'might as well' make it a little wider, won't cost that much more. Then we decided we 'might as well' make it longer too, so since the awnings come in 5' sections the size went to 26 x 22. But the metal carport type awnings need extra space so the slab has to be 27' x 23'. The extra size on the awning is 'only' $500 more. The extra size on the pad is 'only' $300 more. But the side the slab is extending takes more fill so that is $400 more for an extra 20 tons of gravel. But the old sidewalks don't work so we 'might as well' have a couple more new ones put in. And we are getting older so we 'might as well' have the one remaining usable sidewalk torn out and replaced with a new one that does not have a step. While the concrete guy is here we 'might as well' have a new slab poured in front on my shop. And we 'might as well' have another sidewalk poured alongside the shop to the second door.
Suddenly our $5000 project has 'might as welled' up to nearly $10000.
Oh well, we 'might as well' enjoy it now. We're not getting any younger.
RSKY
