I'm Still Alive...

The Dude has been away for awhile. Part of my absence was due to business related travel, but the rest is due to enjoyment of our new pool.

To my loyal followers who have lost faith, I assure you I will update the site with new pics soon. The pool project has more or less come to an end, but the overall project still has a ways to go. This blog has only touched on the other portions of this project, namely the outdoor kitchen and bathroom, so I'll continue to update as those pieces slowly come together. The latter portion (the outdoor bathroom) deserves a dedicated site all to itself. One piece of advice relating to this effort...don't hire a plumber from craigslist.

Back on topic, like child birth, most of the pains of the project have begun to fade and we've just been enjoying our pool. I don' think we have any real regrets. We made a decision to move forward in a recessionary economy and in some ways that probably wasn't the best move. However, I truly believe that we played a big part in keeping our pool builders afloat through parts of the last eight months. We had our pains and the process was dragged out way beyond where it should have, but the end result is better than we ever imagined, and in the end our pool builders delivered on their promises.

We had a major issue with a recent storm that put half of our new landscaping into the pool. While El Duderino was across the pond in a foreign land, the dear La Wiferina was left to cope with the mahem. Our pool builders really stepped up to the plate and helped get everything squared away, so much so, that upon my return, there were no signs that anything had ever happened.

More pics to come in the next few days...

Money

Today marks one month since we were plastered and the six month mark since this saga began. Sadly, there has been very little progress in the last month.

Ironically, today also marks the first day the "monetize" function has appeared in my console. This site gets an unbelievable (to me) number of unique hits each day. It really shocks me how much interest this blog has generated over the last few months with no "advertising" or concerted effort to drive viewers. There have seriously been days where La Wiferina and I have looked our web stats in disbelief. These days obviously coincide with time of major progress on the pool.

Now, I haven't researched the Google AdSense program much, but it appears as though this little blog has reached a point where the boss man is interested in placing some ads for my readers to click.

I'm conflicted on this issue, but have decided to give it a go for a short time and see what happens. I'm certainly not looking pay for my pool with earnings from the ads here, but hey, it can't hurt to see if we can supplement it, even just a little bit!

So, thank you to all of you loyal readers who continue to monitor the progress of our pool build. It's been fun having online and offline conversations and learning a lot from different people along the way. Feel free to boycott the links if that's not your thing, or click them if they interest you. It has never been my goal to make money off of this documentation of our build, and I really doubt it would ever amount to anything substantial, but it could be fun to see what happens.

Thanks!
El Duderino

"Looking For Water"

The pool started filling up yesterday at 5:23 pm CST and completed this morning just before 9:00 am.

Based on my very rough meter reading, it was right at 64 kilowatt hours. Yes, that's right, I read the electric meter. Guess we'll never know how many gallons the pool is. A (much) smarter man than me could probably figure out the GPM of the water and calculate based on the time. But that's obviously above me, since I wasn't sharp enough to even read the right meter.

Here is the picture before filling. My only advice is if you ever decide to use Midnight Blue Diamond Brite, try not to be around during the day of actual plastering.







La Wiferina, testing out the bar stools as the pool fills. Watching a pool fill is close cousins with watching paint dry. So, it helps to add some adult beverages to the process.

Here are the after pictures. There is still a long way to go before the true color emerges, but this change from yesterday is enough to allay my fears! With this type of plaster, it is imperative to brush the pool down twice a day for 7-10 days until the blue dust stops coming off during brushing. This exposes the quartz aggregate and will bring out the true color of the plaster. For this job, I've enlisted the help of the Wall Whale, an inexpensive product that gets universal praise for taking most of the work out of brushing.

Even with the rest of the yard in complete disaray, having some non-earthtone color in the yard and water is calming.

"Tangled Up In Blue"

Our pool saga officially began on October 6th...pretty much 5 months ago to the day.

While there are a million loose ends until completion, technically, we have a pool. If you concur with the American Heritage Dictionary definition of a swimming pool being "a structure, often a concrete-lined excavation of rectangular shape, that is filled with water and used for swimming" then I think we could say we're done.

Today our pool was plastered. The one decision that we didn't belabor was this one, and as the play-doh like material started coming out of the tube this morning, La Wiferina and I looked at ourselves in disbelief. We have seen several live examples of pools done in "Midnight Blue" Diamond Brite, and both agreed on the color. However, as we saw it for the first time, we both unanimously started to second guess this decision.


As the day progressed, we came to the conclusion that white plaster or any color would probably look a little strange in it's wet state, and given the fact that the acid wash was yet to be done and the aggregate exposed, we relaxed a little. Our pool builders assured us that they had checked our blue glass tile with the Midnight Blue plaster and it looked good, but we have never seen it with our own eyes. Once the acid wash took place and it was wet, we began to see what it's really going to look like and are very happy. As we speak, it's dark and the pool is filling up so no completed pics yet...will add them tomorrow.

We still have the final details to be completed. The final decking needs to be formed and poured (over the plumbing), gas line hooked up, and the fire pit completed. Then we can get the irrigation back together and our yard back. I can't tell you how ready we are to be done with tracking in sand and dirt!

Can't wait until the weather warms up a bit and we can actually start using this bad boy. I stated in my original post that I would wait until the end to decide if I should advertise or blast my pool builder. Even though the pool itself is pretty much completed, I will save that decision and diatribe for another day.

"Let It Be"

I haven't updated in awhile, because frankly, nothing very sexy has taken place lately. Unless you find plumbing a bathroom and setting pool equipment sexy.

We seem to be back on track with progress and the end is in sight. I will hopefully have some updated pics soon.

"Shine On You Crazy Diamond"

Inclement weather has kept major progress at bay. I will let the pictures do the talking for today's blog:

"Been a Long Lonely, Lonely, Lonely, Lonely, Lonely Time"

Sorry, dear loyal blog readers, for the long delay in posts...almost a month! Chalk it up to my lame love of using trite song lyrics for captions or lack of progress. Your choice :-)

Things are moving along. We've had some unpredictable weather of late, so our project has crept along accordingly. After a bit of a "come to Jesus" meeting with our pool builders, things seem to be back on track and moving along at a little more of a clip.

With Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years and Lost Tile behind us, things are nearing completion. We're so close we can almost taste it. Of course, the last mile will probably be the longest, with many loose ends to tie up.

All of the tile is now done. On the left is a pic of the negative edge wall coming together (and the beautiful La Wiferina). The picture definitely doesn't do the clear iridescent glass brick tile justice! I'm so glad we were unable to find non-iridescent tile. We looked high and low and couldn't come up with anything that would work and I think we'll be more happy with the result. After much deliberation on tile for the negative edge spa, our pool builders persuaded us to go with the blue glass tile. Once the midnight blue plaster goes in, I think it's going to look awesome. Right now, it looks a little naked with the plain gray concrete as contrast.

"Everybody Wants to Get Stoned"

In Today's post, I will live up to my reputation as a man of few words. I will let the updated pics do the talking:

The masonry work is coming along very quickly. Our tile is lost in transit (thanks UPS), but the work continues on the decking.

Today is pretty dreary in Austin, with a dense, creepy fog hanging around. However, despite the gloomy day, the moisture actually helps bring out the true color of the tan Leuders stone.

There are a few things that need to be tweaked here and there, the cap needs to be added to the retaining wall and the lower deck by the basin needs to be done, but we're almost there with the masonry work!

I'm anxious to find out when/where the tile is and when we can start getting that underway. With Christmas coming up, I'm sure we're about to hit a major delay, so I am very happy to see so much progress. Would love to have the tile done prior to the wait, as the grout needs time to set before adding water, but that is looking less and less likely. BTW, how do you lose 700lbs of tile??

We are probably looking at holding off on the bathroom/kitchen underneath the wood deck for the time being, just to let things play out for a bit with the current economic situation. There are some MAJOR plumbing issues to contend with since this future bathroom is beneath grade and getting the bathrooms' "output" to the sewer at the front of the house is a real ordeal and involves tanks, pumps, grinders, and long/big pipe run under the driveway! Probably doesn't take a genius to figure that equals money and since it's not a necessity at this point, we've decided that it might be smart to keep this as a true "phase 2" as originally planned.

The Joy of Progress

Today has been VERY productive. The masons dropped off some sand at around 11:00. They then proceeded to create this artwork. Oh yea, they chiseled a bit of the rock ledge away too.

File under sarcasm

Snow Falls in Central Texas

"Snow fell across Central Texas Tuesday night. No accumulation was expected on most roads because the snow followed record highs of 81 degrees earlier in the day."

In lieu of updating, as there is nothing to update, I'll leave you with the above quote. Gotta love Austin weather. Needless to say, no work is being done on the pool today, even though the temperatures will most likely be in the 50's today and high 60's tomorrow.

A few updated pics...