The Oasis Begins

I’ve been hinting for a while now that Wendy & I have another home-improvement project in the works. It’s almost half done so I figured it’s blogworthy at this point.

This endeavor was a “tuff” decision as it cost mucho money and it’s a topic of controversy as to whether or not a swimming pool even adds equity to a home. After much debate, we decided the pros outweighed the cons and so off we went into my graphics program to form a “plan“. As you can see, we want to add a swimming pool, a sunroom, a retaining wall, and lots of patio around it all.

So after months of listening to sales pitches at our kitchen table, scrutinizing bids and estimates, and researching on the Internet, the project finally began in late fall. They started by excavating the hill in our backyard and of course digging a big hole.

The next step involved assembling the steel walls of the pool inside the hole.

Here’s a pix of the completed assembly. Afterwards, they poured concrete around 3 sides and backfilled. A hot topic of debate for all who visited our house was how they were going to get the track loader out of the pool.

The question was answered when they removed one side of the pool and dug out the bottom to our specified depth & shape.

Next, they used some kind of machine to compact the dirt on the floor of the pool.

In comes the cement mixer again and here is the floor half poured.

Here they are trenching out the filter connections. Check out that pool filter! It looks like some kind of space pod!

In this pix, you can see the beginnings of the retaining wall.

It’s getting bigger!

In this pix, the wall is finished and backfilled. We absolutely love the way the retaining wall turned out!

Another angle of the “mostly finished” wall.

Quite the mess!

At this point it rained so much we were considering building an Ark and the pool filled up with a foot of water. Then Mother Nature turned up the volume a bit and everything froze. So now our project is on hold until the weather breaks and things dry up a bit. This is the reason we decided to do this project in the “Off” season. Does it matter when it gets done as long as it’s ready by summer?

And finally, this is a pix atop the beginnings of our Sledding hill. An idea I give full credit to Stephanie for. During an email to & fro, she was telling me about a time when they actually had loads of dirt brought in, planted grass on it, and used it to sled off during the winter snow. While in negations for the pool installation, the salesman brought up the question of all the excess dirt. To haul it away would have cost $200 per load so a light bulb came on in my head and I told him the dirt would remain “On-Site”. When the project foreman started excavation I had the conversation with him and he assured me that they would build me “Da Bomb” of a sledding hill!

So there is where we are currently at folks. I’m sure I’ll have more to add to the status of this soon!