Backyard Oasis - Week 10

Drum roll, please...... We officially have a swimming pool in our backyard!

 

On Monday, they came & hooked up our irrigation system. So glad to have the sprinkler system working again. Our front yard looks horrible because we couldn't run it for the last 2 months. They also added new drip lines for the flower beds that I designed:

 

 

On Tuesday, they came first thing that morning to plaster the pool. This is what it looked like before we left to take Sadie to school:

 

 

And here it is when we got home from Sophie's swimming lessons:

 

 

It was really interesting watching them spray the gunite, smooth it out & then mix in the pebbles. They were walking around with these boots on top of stilts so they were only poking small holes into the plaster. It only took them about 4 hours & then they were finished. Here are a few snapshots of the tanning ledges - I'm not sure if you can see the pebbles or not:

 

 

After lunchtime, the fence guys showed up & they stained the fence. I had pictures but somehow I lost them, but I'm sure you will notice the fence in later pictures.

 

On Wednesday, the girls & I left for the morning & when we got home after lunch time, they had just acid washed the pool & finished her up :) And we got there just in time to see them turn the water hoses on:

 

 

Sadie was so excited! I was a little shocked that the plaster still looked so blue. I took a lot of pictures so I could send it to Bryan since he was out of town:

 

 

Remember, those were all taken around lunch time on Wednesday afternoon. By dinner time, the pool looked like this:

 

 

And I even snapped a picture around midnight:

 

 

We had 2 water hoses in there running full speed, so I was a little nervous about going to sleep, but when I woke up the next morning, we still had a way to go:

 

 

At least it finally covered the bottom step. When Sadie got home from school, it was covering the second step:

 

 

Sadie had a blast helping fill up the pool with water & she finally got to stick her hands & feet in the water & get wet! Bryan flew home Thursday night & we still had a lot of space left to fill, so we ran it again while we slept. I would say it was finally 100% full of water by early lunch on Friday, so it officially took 48 hours to fill it up! I am afraid to see this month's water bill......

 

 

When the pool finished, we filled the hot tub:

 

 

I cannot tell you how excited all of us have been today! All of my fears about the blue plaster melted away when I saw the water come to life. It is the exact color we imagined. A lot of people choose darker pools with green or dark blue water, but we really wanted Caribbean blue, aqua water & it couldn't have turned out prettier. In fact, here is the picture I showed our pool builder for inspiration:

 

 

This is Shoal Bay, on Anguilla, which is my favorite beach on earth :)

 

We also had one more surprise delivered yesterday:

 

 

Outdoor Furniture! They delivered most of it yesterday, but a couple of pieces were back ordered. The good thing is we got major discounts for shopping outdoor furniture after the summer season, but the bad news is not everything was in stock. We pulled everything under the cover for the weekend because we are supposed to have big storms, but I will take pictures next week when we put it all out.

 

Next up, landscaping, audio & decorating. I cannot believe we finished this project in 10 weeks. Technically, it would have been a few weeks sooner, if we hadn't done the roof & the fence, but it was worth the wait. They originally told us 10-12 weeks & we were expecting longer but our pool builder exceeded our expectations :)