Tour of Homes

During our rain delay period, I went on a mini tour of some of our pool builders' completed pools. We're getting to the point where we need to start making a lot of decisions about stone, decking, coping, tile, plaster...the list goes on and on. It's something I never really realized. I've been in a million pools and hardly notice any of those finer points, but they're all decisions that have to be made. It's daunting!

Our pool builders are happy to guide us, but ultimately, it's our decision based mostly on aesthetics. So long story short, I saw a lot of pools. I funneled the best of the best down and took La Wiferino to about 3-4. The takeaway from all of it, was no matter what choices we make, I feel extremely confident that we will LOVE this pool. We were able to narrow down many choices, make some decisions of key elements, and we still have some decisions to make. Again, I don't think there are any "wrong" choices, just personal preference.

Our pool builders have an amazingly impressive portfolio. Pictures don't begin to do justice to some of the things they've done. I was shocked to learn that I really liked a lot of things I never thought I would (glass tile) and didn't like some things I was certain I would love (beadcrete).

The overwhelmed feeling I had prior to checking things out is pretty much gone. There is a certain amount of blind faith one has to have in their builder, and after seeing so much finished project, I have a lot of faith that they know what they're doing and we're in good hands.

Day Three: "Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes..."

Over the weekend, I read about a few pool build threads on the internet: Part inspiration, part curiosity. I was pretty shocked to see the progress some people make in each passing day. I saw one pool that was excavated in one day and then all the steel and plumbing was completed by day two. Gunite on day three. Not us.

We're approaching our second week. Friday was a day off for the excavator for several reasons. One, I've learned Delton is quite the character and has a lot of other "interests" besides wreaking havoc on unsuspecting people's backyards. Second, while digging, we have encountered a water "issue" and were letting things dry out a bit. For those familiar with the current Austin weather conditions, you know I'm not talking rain. Apparently, they have hit some sort of spring. Not a show stopper by any means, but a slight hiccup in the process.


Over the weekend, we addressed some of the issues we had with the pool design. Mainly, the fact that we felt the actual pool was a little too close to the house. Probably would have been a good idea to determine this prior to excavation beginning, but our pool builder took the news in stride and was out first thing this morning, making the necessary changes. Despite our pool builders working on these changes until close to midnight on a Sunday and showing up first thing this morning to lay them out, we think we'll ultimately be much happier with this revision. Score one for the pool builders! Keep this up and they may get their name in lights on my humble little blog sooner rather than later!

So today, a no-school holiday, began at 7:20am with more jackhammering. This awoke both of our kids and probably most of the neighborhood as well. I guess the plan is to push forward until/unless someone complains. Nothing drastic in the way of progress today, but the excavator did hit a water main in the sprinkler system and after locating the mysterious valve that has been overtaken by 9 years of shrubbery growth, we were fine on that front.

So, here we are after day three. The pool still has a ways to go in terms of digging and the grading for the decking is starting to take place. Of course, we just found out the excavator wasn't made aware of the "new" decking plan, so it will be interesting to see how that pans out, since he already starting removing earth where the "old" plans had decking. Will we get additional decking out of this or will they come up with some other interesting solution? Tune in tomorrow to find out. Until next time...

Day Zero: Layout

So here is the backyard, prior to the bomb going off.

Unfortunately, I got an email from our pool builder at 6:45am this morning letting me know they had done the layout last night and were ready to begin excavation today. Needless to say, this was not a good situation since I was out of town and neither of us had gotten a chance to check out the spray painted layout in our yard.

After several frantic calls by my wife and I, they delayed the dig one day so that I could view the layout...whew. However, in all the confusion, the excavator did remove the tree that happened to be placed smack dab in the center of our soon to be deep end. Wish I had a true "before" pic, but I don't think I do. The picture above is as good as it gets.

The layout is a bit hard to see. My initial concerns with the renderings were that the pool was a little too narrow at the narrowest spot. This was confirmed by the layout and they are making an adjustment. We're also wondering if it's a little too close to the house, but like all things in life, we had to make some compromises. Decking is a huge expense and in a cost saving measure, we're a little closer to the house than we might have hoped for. Also, based on the extreme grading issue in our backyard, the designers made a judgment call on where they thought it would work best.

I think ultimately, we'll be happy where it is, as it will preserve a good portion of grass and yard on the back side of the pool.