Pooling our Resources

I am the engineer in the house.  The analyzer.  I like math, science, physics and the related fields of study.  Which means I'm a nerd.  And often the party pooper.

The good news for my family is Roberta is the antidote to my analytic life.  I could devote an entire library of posts on the aspects of this yin-yang relationship, but that is not why you are here.  Actually, who knows why you are here...  My point is sometimes I can throw caution to the wind and say, "Maybe".

A "maybe" will always buy you more time to over-think and worry.  I've come to accept that not all decisions can be black and white.  No matter how many times I run the scenarios there are a lot of gray areas...  and when it's light gray you may as well go for it.  The worrying is Overkill.

For the better part of a year Roberta has been campaigning for a pool.  And having spent a few hours in and around a few pools myself I wasn't interested.  Frankly, they're a hassle to maintain, and since we aren't going to be at the Hideout full-time it doesn't make much sense.  But Roberta kept reminding me that the summers are 100+ degrees and without a way to cool off everyone is going to be miserable.

I wasn't buying it.  Ever hear of air conditioning?

But she continued to erode my resistance.  Slowly getting bids and designs from half a dozen different companies.  So when we found ourselves in March 2014 and the house was still not done, and the temperature was starting to creep up...  You know that gray area I was talking about?  Well it started to lighten up considerably.

We settled on a plan and told the pool builder he needed this thing wrapped up in 30 days or less in order to avoid delaying the house closing (haha, that was a funny thought!), and he said no problem.  We are looking to do something in the style of this photo below.  A long and rectangular profile matches our house well.  We also decided not to tell the kids.  They have been strung out on this ride for over a year and we tried to keep the pool option off their radar.  If it didn't happen we didn't want them to be bummed out.

Since our foundation sits about 4 feet above grade in the back the excavation was minimal.  We are doing a simple rectangle along the back of the house, with decking at both ends.  This is particularly helpful on the north side as it solved the problem of getting from the outdoor shower to the back porch.  I know that sounds like we built a pool to be able to walk 20 feet, but it was part of Roberta's argument (she's good).  Here are a couple of renderings of the final result.

The pool crew isn't  messing around.  Excavation took 2 days, another day for framing and rebar, a day for electric and plumbing...  and one day for Gunite.  In just over a week of work we have the shell of a pool behind the house.  It has a bench running the full length on the house side, the other side is a lap swim lane.  Here are some shots of the framing and plumbing:

Next update will show the Gunite application.  You may have noticed not many updates on the house lately... I wish that was my fault but our builder has lost his way.  I'll provide some detail on that later, for now I can tell you building a custom house builds character.

Thanks for stopping by.