Mulch and Full

We are officially 1 day away from startup, and with 100F weather, it's not a day too soon! Today we finished filling the pool, and had some rough landscaping put in. The kids and I have been prepping flower beds a little this week, so it's neat to see mulch and sod in place.

Here are a few pictures that capture the water color (although it's a little lighter in person), and basic layout of the flower beds...

Still Filling

After about 17 hrs of filling with 2 hoses and a direct PVC line, we are about 2/3 of the way full. At this rate, we should be full around lunch time, and estimate a 20,000 gallon capacity.

Here are a few pictures showing what it looks like so far. We're very happy with the plaster color, and are glad we didn't go darker!

Water

After almost 6 weeks of construction, we finally have a pool! They acid washed the plaster today, and started filling it up, so everyone is pretty excited. It looks like startup will be Friday, so they beat the schedule by 2 weeks!

Here are a few pictures of the pool filling up:

Plaster

We are officially one day away from water!

Today the plaster crew was at the house around 6:45, and even though that meant the kids were up a little early, we are excited to be 99% finished with our pool! Tomorrow they will return to acid wash the cement off, which should result in a more blue surface, but it already looks great.

This image is of one of the benches, which came out smooth, and shows a little bit of the color, which will be bluer and darker once it's acid washed and water is added:

Here's a closeup for the beach entry, which still requires some finish work, but is a pretty decent shot of the pebbles:

This evening Josh, Gavin and I put down some landscaping fabric, raked some of the rocks out of Harley's dog run, and started borders for the flower beds, so we're anxious to get things wrapped up this week!

Fenced In

Over the weekend Josh and I set-up the play set including a weed block, and today the sprinkler guys came, so we're ready for mulch and sod!

We also hired Keller Fence Co. to put up a wrought iron rail around our existing porch, and add a dog run for Harley. They are doing a nice job, and should paint tomorrow to improve the appearance of everything:

As with everything, we noticed a few things that would improve the functionality of the project, so we added a couple extra gates, but that meant the cost of the fence increased a little. It should be a lot nicer for family gatherings though, and with a pool lock, it will make us feel a little better about Gavin on the back porch (when we're out there):

Tomorrow we're supposed to have the plaster installed, so we're only a few days from having water!

House Moving

Even though Robertson Pools has done an amazing job with our pool, I was disappointed to hear this week they weren't able to budge the playhouse! Really, it's tough to be too upset about it, but if Grandpa wasn't so capable with moving heavy equipment, this would have been a real pain (we think it weighs about 1,500 lb).

Here's where the house was after the re-grade last week:

We ended up having to borrow some pipe from the fence guys, and bought six landscaping timbers to make a rail system for the house to ride on. Then it was just a matter of winching the house up to the dirt pad. Here's a picture of the house on the dirt pad still sitting on the pipe:

Finally, after about 5 weeks of sitting back by the fence, the playhouse is where we planned it!

Much thanks to Grandpa for making this happen!

Regrade

Today the clean up crew came through and restored our yard back to something semi respectable. Since the pool and deck make it impossible to get a bobcat back there, they had to do all this work by hand, but it looks 100% better.

Here's a shot Josh took from inside the pool:




The retaining walls have been backfilled, and are ready for sprinklers:







They still have to move the playhouse, but there's a nice level pad for it:




Overall, everything is really starting to come together:




All that's left is...

??? - Moving the playhouse
Thurs/Mon - Porch railing, dog run, and pool gates
Mon - Sprinklers
Tues - Plaster
Thurs - Startup
Fathers Day - Swimming