Pool!

After years of refusing to even think about it, I finally relented and allowed my family to get a pool.  We started looking into the process last summer, but by the time we got serious it was late July and the pool wouldn't be done until the fall so we held off.  Finally, in January we decide to get started.  Here is our yard before the process.  We did have to move the electrical line and so you can see the dirt path of the line in the back. This is straight out of our back door.

This is to the right of our back door.  The dirt pad is where the trampoline was for the past 7 years.

The view to the left of the back door.  The trampoline is only temporarily going to be there.

Ellie wanted to point out how big and open the yard is.

The excavation.  Our yard is sloped down from the porch so the back end had to be raised to make the pool level.

After the excavation.

The rebar put in in preparation for the gunite.  Michael and Nate are showing the depth.

The first day of gunite. This just kept the walls from falling in over the weekend.

Gunite day.

The hot tub.

A view of the bench in the deep end and the hot tub being done.

The stairs.

The finished gunite.

We wanted a fun place for the kids to jump from.  We had this waterfall created.

Nate liked climbing on it even before the pool was done.

After the tile around the waterline of the pool was done and the tile around the hot tub, as well as the coping around the pool.

I really like the split stone face that is around the hot tub.

The next step was the deck.  Having  a nice wide deck was a big priority for us.

Next was the plaster.  We picked a dark gray/blue color so that we could have dark water.  It is very pretty.  It is more difficult to see people in the water though.

Filling up day.

We have a nice wide step that can be used as a bench in the pool  You can sit in there and cool off but not be all the way in the pool.

The first day in the pool!

The last step was the landscaping.  Since there was a large easement at the back of our yard, we had to put the pool 14 feet from the fence.  That left a large area that was just ugly.  We thought that the pool would look much nicer if we landscaped the whole area.  You can see the water is a dark aqua color.  In the back to the left, we have a sitting area with a round table and 4 chairs.

We didn't want to mow inside the fenced area (fence not shown) so we xeroscaped the back yard.  We had some very pretty flowers put in.

View from the deep end toward the shallow end.

My favorite view, from the sitting area toward the hot tub.

This is the pit that will eventually have an in ground trampoline in it.  That is a huge project that we will continue working on soon.