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ibobi

Follow-up to 'Taking the Plunge..' We have finished - Dallas area

ibobi
15 years ago

Well we have finished our pool build. Our pool was finished near the end of May and we love it. We had some heavy rain this week in Dallas and it was probably the first time all summer it was not used for a day. After living for most of June with dirt around the pool we decided to get some estimates on landscaping. Big surprise!!! That was my biggest mistake of planning this thing. I had figured around $1500 would cover someone taking care of it. The estimates came in at over $5000. So if your planning a pool....don't forget to budget for landscaping or plan on doing it yourself. We chose to do it ourselves. Over the past few weeks I have moved dirt from around the pool to around the house and put down 4 tons of rock. It was tough, but it saved me. By doing it myself it cost $1000. So here are the final pictures of the

finished product. We also added a gate across the back alley and had the fence cleaned and re-sealed. They did a great job of making the old fence and the new fence look the same. Our original fence was built in 94 and still looks great.

Here is my original thread build if you want to see how it went.....

http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/load/pools/msg0421135317904.html

here is what 4 tons of rock look like...the place we bought the rock from offer to put it these bags for a extra $15. Well worth it if you are going to work on spreading it over a period of time

Here are the pics of the pool....you can never have enough umbrellas.

Here is the dog keeping a lookout for dragonflys....I think she feels we built the pool for her. She is in it everyday for at least an hour.

We love the waterfall. Its great to sit on the patio with a cold beer and relax....

Someday we will build a patio cover, but that will have to wait.

Picture of the mighty gate from the alley. This is the best. We can leave our garage door open without worrying that people are ripping us off. Plus it opens up the whole back yard...what little we have.

Well thats it. If you are building a pool...take your time and talk to several builders and talk to people that have pools and ask what they would do differently. Search this forum and others with questions. Our builder was Riverbend Sandler and I would definitely recommend them.

Comments (15)

  • donnawb
    15 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Congrats, it looks great. Love the rocks around the pool.

  • maecat
    15 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    The pool looks beautiful!! Your dog is very cute too :) This may be a dumb question, but does your garage have doors on both sides so you can drive through it? I haven't seen that before. It's great to have the garage door open in the backyard- more room for parties...

  • susan1404
    15 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    I love your rock - do mind telling me where you got it? I live in the DFW area too, and that rock in those colors would be perfect between my retaining wall and the raised beam. Do you remember if there is a minimum amount to buy? Also, how big of an area would you guess that your 4 tons covered? It looks beautiful. (I also think your dog is adorable, btw!)
    Thanks! Susan

  • desertfix
    15 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Looks really good! Seems like you maximized the use of the space in your backyard. It looks like there is a capped PVC pipe sticking up behind the steps. Just curious - is that some sort of future water feature, maybe connected to the pool?

  • tresw
    15 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Nice work Bob, it turned out great! Is that big arrow in the last picture pointing to the buried treasure? It's probably the gas line locate, but buried treasure sounds better :-D

  • ibobi
    Original Author
    15 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Thanks for the comps guys.

    Maecat - The house has a typical rear entry garage. You enter the back of the house from the garage or the back patio. We use our garage for darts and ping pong. We can fold up the ping pong table and still get both cars in the garage...so that works great.

    Susan - We bought the stone from Whiz-Q stone in south Fort Worth. There website is www.whizq.com. Great group of people. I live in Carrollton and wanted to buy from places I found in Lewisville and Frisco and they were not friendly to the non-commercial buyer. Whiz-Q was just the opposite. I called ahead and asked if I could get some samples and when I showed up they had gallon zippys with my name ready to roll. The stome I bought was Arizona Extra Small Cobble for $160/ton. The final bill was for around $850. It was $640 for the rock. $85 for delivery. $45 for the bags. Then tax. I thought it was very fair.
    As for how much you will need, they have a calculator on there website to figure this out. You enter the square footage and the depth and it tells you how much you need. Ours worked out perfectly. It was a bit of a drive to go to there but it was well worth it to check it out and talk to them. Plus you can see their products in person.

    Desertfix - The PVC is run underneath the deck for future low volt lights. I should have done this before the rock, but I am not sure if I am going to do this or not.

    Tresw - Thanks for all the help from your posts. You have been fantastic with your own personal threads plus your replys to others. How is the salt working for you??? Our system has been very easy. We have checked our CYA and it has been in the 70s lately but everything else is in check.

  • tresw
    15 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Hey Bob, if you've got an SWG then 70 on the CYA is just about ideal. It would be high for non-SWG, but with SWG it's recommended to keep the CYA in the 70 to 90 range. Since switching to SWG on ours I'm amazed at how much easier the pool is to maintain! We just add acid once a week and everything else stays right where it needs to be. My only gripe is that sometimes the cleaner whip comes out of the water and sprays water out far enough to hit the windows on the breakfast room (almost 20' away). Before SWG it wasn't a problem, but now when the drops dry they leave behind salt residue so I have to clean the windows a lot more frequently. That's not a deal-killer though. I need to read the Pentair instructions and see if I can dial the cleaner pressure down so it doesn't ride so high on the walls, that might solve it.

    I like how all your rock turned out, very nice!!

  • ibobi
    Original Author
    15 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    tresw....
    Happy to see that SWG is working for you. I am going with chlorine for now. Tested CYA today and it was 70. I have shocked the pool probably 4 times this summer and it seems that our ozone is kicking butt. Couldn't be happier. This is far easier than I thought it would be.

    I have included some of our latest pictures. We bought some new iron work for the fence. I hate that we only have a month left in the swim season.

  • Laura Ready
    15 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    What a beautiful pool, and I love your landscaping and "yard art." I have a cute funky metal palm tree I bought months ago, and can't wait to use it in my final landscaping (whenever that will be LOL). My PB (Pools, Palms, and Patios) actually asked me where I got it, said he could probably sell them in his patio showroom.
    What are the dimensions on your pool?

  • ibobi
    Original Author
    15 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Thanks ami.....my dimensions are

    28'x22' freeform
    410 surface sq ft
    84' perimeter
    14500 gallons

    Good luck with your pool.

  • waynespool
    15 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Just joined this site...wished I had known about it before we started our remodel. I love the color of your water...what did you use on your pool bottom? Did you add colored plaster to an aggregate or is it pebble?

  • ibobi
    Original Author
    15 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    waynespool....
    We have the builders version of pebble caribbean blue. Its just a little lighter than the ever popular Tahoe Blue most people go with. Of all the upgrades to choose from, I would rate upgrading to pebble very very high. I love the feel most of all. It supposedly last longer too. We bought it mainly because of the feel and look. It help hide the dirt in the pool. We have friends with regular white plaster and you can see every little piece of dirt/leaves. Definitely worth the price.

  • waynespool
    15 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    thanks ibobi...your pool is the perfect color and we are considering caribbean blue in 3M colorquartz, so hopefully, it should look similiar...suprised that the pebble feels good...most people are saying it is hard on the feet...did u use pebble sheen or pebblefina instead of the pebble tec?

  • ibobi
    Original Author
    15 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    waynespool...we went with the slightly smaller pebble tec. I get them mixed up. It was either the fina or sheen. In the PBs show pools they only had the pebble tec, so we had them take us to a recently finished pool so we could try out the smaller pebble. I have been in the pool almost everyday and my feet look about the same as they look at the end of every summer. Most pools I have been in have been regular plaster and my toes usually get a little scabby. It might depend on your feet. Good luck......Bob

  • exit2studios
    15 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Beautiful pool. I instantly recognized the first photos as Dallas!

    By looking at the pictures, I was guessing Pebble Sheen before ibobi replied. It definitely doesn't look like Pebble Tec and certainly not like the Tahoe Blue PT. Tahoe Blue has a bit of green tint to it, which ibobi's pool does not. I love the color and it's making me think twice about the DiamondBrite we have spec'ed in our build.