Catching Up on Pool Construction

Hello friends! Earlier this week we had a Zoom chat with our friends Julia and Bob and Julia, being the true friend that she is, gave me a “talking to” about how long it has been since I updated the blog. “Oh, it hasn’t been that long,” I protested. Only more than 2 months since my last post, as it turns out. Ooops.

So my apologies to everyone (although I doubt any of you lost sleep over the lack of updates) and thanks to Julia for the kick in the rear.. 🙂 The photos in this post go back through April and March to February 27th when the plumbing and equipment were all installed.

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They made quick work of getting all of the equipment including the pool filter, the heater, and the ozone filter installed. We “hid” the equipment on the south side of the house, off a storage room at the end of the great room. Having grown up with a pool, I know that the heaters and filters can be noisy (I’m guessing these new units are more efficient and silent than I remember), but still. I like that they are tucked away and not in view.

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Meanwhile, John “helped” by hovering where they dug so he could hunt for arrowheads…

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So all of the above took place on February 27, 2021. Then, on March 3-4, we had a group of 25 people from all over the world descend upon us to “shoot the pool”.

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Turns out we had a world expert on shotcrete here in LaGrange, TX to teach various crews how to spray liquid concrete (or shotcrete). Oscar lives on an organic blueberry farm in Sonoma, but his main job is traveling the US doing commercial concrete work. He rarely does residential projects and one of his most recent projects was refurbishing underground tunnels out of the US Capitol.

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The other crews were from Northern Texas, Arizona, and as far away as South Africa! They began by wrapping up the house so random spray wouldn’t damage the porches.

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Then the spraying began…They started with the spa and went into the rest of the pool.

There were always at least 2 guys holding the hose at any point. The nozzle alone weighed 75 pounds. The pressure through the hose could be regulated and they generally had it spraying at a level 1 or 2. John asked, what would happen if you turned it up to a level 4? Oscar told us that it would lift a man off the ground and he would be flying in the air like a cartoon. 😳

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Before the concrete fully cured, John and I put our hand prints into the pool ledge. No one will see it after it gets plastered with the PebbleTech, but it was a fun touch for us at the end of the process.

Next came tile and coping (the top stone around the pool). I had forgotten what we had selected last September when we signed the contract for the pool, so it was fun to see the tiles and stones in person.

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First they added the tile at the waterline on March 24-25, 2021.

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Then the travertine stone coping was installed along the top edge of the pool and spa.

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And finally, they cut some of the blue tiles to be installed along the benches and steps. I thought that was a nice touch and offers some visual interest and helps everyone to see where the steps are located.

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So that brings us up to date on the pool progress. Sadly nothing, and I mean nothing, has been done for the entire month of April.☹️ Pool and other construction projects are in such demand that they cannot get crews out to finish the work concrete decking or plaster work. Thankfully, the deck forming is scheduled to begin this next week so we will get back on track soon.

Sorry for the epic post and if you’ve made it this far, thanks for stopping by.

Hugs, Libby