Yikes. Yeah, that's kind of embarrassing.
I thought I would share with you guys the mini-renovation process. It's not a DIY since I have literally no business trying to replaster my own pool, and the most I had to do myself was write a (big fat) check. It's not really a design post because we didn't redesign the pool or add a waterfall or fountain or color changing lights or dolphin statues or anything else noteworthy, but it is a part of our house, so hopefully it will still be interesting to you.
The former home owners didn't take the best care of the pool (it looked like this the day we took possession of the house) and the Hubs has fought with it since then to keep it from looking like something out of a horror film. Try as he might, the pool was plagued with black algae (pool cancer), so we never really could stay ahead of it. The pool was put in nearly 30 years ago and had a few cracks in the plaster, so it was time for a refresh.
Come to think of it, I am also 30 and can see some lines and cracks on my skin. Maybe I need a refresh?
We stopped putting chlorine in it a couple of weeks before the renovation since we knew we had to drain the pool. We would literally have been throwing our money away. So this green monstrosity is what we lived with for quite awhile.
DAY 1
I alluded in a previous post that a City employee had the nerve to laugh at me as both of my children were melting down in the front yard. Several of you have asked what that is all about (you guys are so sweet), so here's the rest of that story.
Our pool guys were draining the pool, and someone thought a water main had broken since they saw so much water coming out of the back of our house, so they called the city. Then a really great guy (sarcasm), let's call him Josh, showed up and gave us trouble for draining our pool the wrong way. He said the right way was through our sewage stand pipe. I informed him that we do not have a sewage stand pipe. He argued with me and said I was wrong. He then proceeded to tromp all through my flower beds with a metal stick, searching for this magical pipe. He killed my poor newly planted Coleus in the process:
He then let me know that we do not in fact have a sewage standpipe (duh, I told you that) and that the City would be happy to put one in for $75 if I was interested. At that moment I was holding a crying baby, had a death grip on a tantrum throwing 3 year old, and he had the nerve to laugh at my misery. I told him that the only thing I was interested in at the moment was ending this ridiculous conversation and invited him to kindly leave my property.
Don't mess with momma bear.
I was pretty sure a strongly worded letter from the City and a fine would follow, but it's been 3 weeks and no such letter has come. I decided not to send my photo to the City to complain about my squashed plant, lest they send me $3 to replace the plant plus a fine for $500. I'll call it even.
DAY 2
The guys sanded the pool and roughed up the plaster to prepare for the new finish. Here's what the pool looked like once they were done. Sooooo much better already.
We took a little walk in the pool, because, come on. How often do you get to do that? We knew our pool was deep, but seeing it drained it turned out to look substantially deeper than we thought. Also, you couldn't look directly at the pool when the sun was out because it would burn your retinas off. Don't worry, we didn't take Max out there until it was cloudy.
DAYS 6-8
We skipped several days here due to the Easter weekend. When the work picked back up, the guys added a bonding coat to help the new plaster stick to the old. There was also a lot of plumbing work that needed to be done. Technical stuff. There was some PVC pipe involved.
We also switched our pool from a suction side cleaner (which is terrible) to a pressure side cleaner (which is awesome). This has a lot to do with why our old pool looked so awful. The suction side cleaner loses pressure when it's clogged and then stops cleaning. Think of when you have a clogged drain in your kitchen sink; the junk can't drain so it just sits in your sink.
Now the pressure side cleaner acts like a vacuum or a lawn mower. It sucks up leaves and dirt, deposits them in a bag (rather than trying to send it all the way back to the main pump through hoses and in-ground pipes) and you just empty the bag. Easy peasy.
We didn't take any photos during this stage, because it was all work that you really couldn't see.
DAY 10
Yeah, this process took about two weeks, which was longer than I expected. They didn't come every day, and April is their busy season with everybody and their mother trying to get their pools ready for summer. Since we weren't itching to dive in, I let go of my Type-A-ness and just rolled with it. It was tough.
Time for the actual re-plastering! A crew of about 6 guys showed up and did their thing. It took about 5 hours from start to finish to put the new layer of plaster on the pool and lay the new spotter tiles on the steps.
When they were done, they stuck the garden hose in the pool to fill it up. Let me tell you, it looks absolutely ridiculous to see a giant cavern of a pool being filled with a silly old garden hose. I thought it would take a month to fill, but it only took about 1.5 days. In my brain a giant water truck was going to pull up and dump water into our pool fire-hydrant-style, but nope. I guess that would cost more.
Here's what it looked like about 24 hours later. The plaster has some tiny blue flecks in it that make the water look pretty and tropical.
DAY 12
It's finally done, and boy, is it gorgeous.
We were asked if we wanted to use spotter tiles or not; those are the little tiles that go on the steps. Apparently they have gone out of fashion. Well, call me old fashioned, but I don't enjoy totally biting it falling into a pool where I didn't see the last step (it's a doozie!). Also with grandparents and great grandparents and friends and littles, we thought it best to give people a clue that there were steps. We decided on 1x1 tiles along the full length of the steps, which looks nicer than the plain 4x4 diamond tiles that were there before.
Don't you just want to dive into that blue water?! Well, on Cinco de Mayo, we did. It was 95 degrees out already (if you can believe it) so we went for it. We only lasted 40 minutes because, by my estimation, the water was about 38.6 degrees.
Max looked adorable...and a bit unsure. But he loved it. I have no actual pictures of the kids spashing around because I was focused on keeping them both alive as I was the only adult in the pool.
Also, I'm totally rocking a one-piece this summer. Maybe by next year my body-that-birthed-two-babies will be ready for a bikini again. Might help if I exercised ever.
OTHER UPDATES
In the last few weeks we've also added an umbrella to our existing outdoor table to give us some extra shade. It's red-orange. Shocking.
An actual shocking piece of information is that I've managed not to kill all of these plants we've planted. The oregano is completely out of control (shown in both of those pots in the photo below) as well as some more Coleus that wasn't trampled by a City employee.
Henry and Stella are enjoying the warmer weather in the backyard.
I plan to paint the garage door a fun color to give this view of the backyard some personality. The whole beige-on-beige-on-beige exterior of the house is driving me insane. I'm thinking an aqua blue might be pretty and go with some of the other colors we have going on.
We also want to plant some things under this tree. There were some really nasty overgrown bushes back there, but when we were working on the mailbox, our favorite tree trimmer happened to be driving by. His guys cleared that bed and trimmed the tree over the pool back for us. Saved us about 2 weekends of work. Money well spent. And at some point, I want to build something to conceal that pool equipment in the back corner. Maybe a vine could grow on it? The Hubs will probably hate that idea. We shall see.
That's the back yard. With the money we spent updating the pool, this is where we will be vacationing this summer. And next summer. And the twelve summers after that.
Is anybody else getting their yards ready for summer?
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