A BIG update

Settle in...a long read with a big update.

In a matter of a few weeks, we've had some major changes to our household!  No.  I'm not pregnant and never intend to be again...have no fear.

More in lines with our house.  You may or may not know...we had our house on the market for nearly a year, trying to see if anyone would bite.  We weren't full fledge trying to sell super hard or anything...just putting it out there.  We had lots of lookers, but no offers.  We thought if it sold, we would buy something a little more roomy closer to the elementary school that we transfer to (we aren't technically zoned for the school the girls attend).  The problem arose, though, that we really couldn't find anything either that we just LOVED (to buy).  Our house is paid off and that is REALLY nice.  And we wavered...  do we just buy another stepping stone house?  Do we go all out and get a dream house where we live till we die?  Or what.  And then, no offers on the house.  So when the realtor contract expired, we didn't renew.  We believe if it was meant to be it would've happened and just the right thing would've come along.  Neither of those things happened, so we took it off the market.  Then out came the new property value appraisal.  They were raising our taxes (again) by quite a large jump.  So, Brad set out a personal mission to lower these taxes.  He took photos of any and everything 'wrong' with our house and property.  He got bids on everything that needed to be done.  Things like.... a new roof (desperately needed), new windows, repairing gutters, leveling the yard to fix the flood area...blah blah blah...  He took all his documentation that he worked on down to the appraisal district and fought to lower our taxes.  Once seeing everything, its quite ridiculous how they operate.  For instance, they use google maps to look at your property and any add-ons you've done.  They noticed a storage building we have.  Ok...the storage building is one of those plastic resin ones?  Cost us a a few hundred dollars brand new (like $300 maybe?) and it was already 6 or more years old.  They appraised the value of it at $1200!!!  WHAT?!?!  Craziness...

So after all his fighting and back and forth, they ended up lowering the value of our house by....wait for it.....  over $30,000!!!  Wowzers!  Our taxes will be going down considerably!  However, on the selling forefront its not that great.  It basically meant that we won't be selling our house in the near future anyway.  ;)

So.  Fast forward a few weeks.  Brad decides and (eventually) convinces me that since our house is completely paid for, we should take out a small home equity loan to fix some of these things on our house and do some updates.  1) It needs it!,  2) we've always wanted to do some stuff to update (bathroom, kitchen, etc), and 3) we could afford it now and if we ever did decide to put it back on the market it would make it easier selling.

As I said, he "eventually" convinced me.  I was holding out.  Having no house payment and no car payment is nice.  And it feels like a nice security blanket.  The whole, 'they can't take my house away' satisfaction ya know?  But he convinced me that we wouldn't really be getting *that* much of a loan, would be able to pay it off relatively quickly and would still be debt free.  My only other holdout?  If we were going to do this.... I didn't want to just do boring stuff.  A new roof?  Blah.  Gutters?  No fun. Windows?  Ugh.  Not fun.  I wanted to use a little bit of the 'extra' and get a pool.

Not an inground pool.  Just an above ground pool.  But not the cheapy kind you get from Target or WalMart.  A real professionally installed above ground pool.  We had the funds and could do it!  We decided to get started on it right away so we would have plenty of time to enjoy it this summer.   The rest of the updates are coming quick behind it don't worry...but the pool was first.

So first the biggest decision was to buy local and pay a little extra to have them install it.  We have friends that ordered from the internet, spent a little less and did it themselves.  We probably *could* have done it.  But even in hindsight, this was the best decision.  It was a BIG job.  So we decided on a pool (which has a 25 yr warranty I believe - another great reason to buy local ;) ), the size and the liner and all the details.  We decided on which extras were important to us and which chemical route to go (not using chlorine..more on that later).   They ordered and in the meantime, we started at home clearing the land to get it pool ready.

We have the trampoline (in the way), so we moved that back further in the yard.  Easy enough.  Then we have the girls swingset/playhouse thing that was also in the way.  My dad came over one Saturday and helped with that big move.  Whew!  That was a chore.  It took several hours, 3 of us, a rope and pulley system and some luck that it stayed intact.  We need to move it back on the other side of the tree.  First, we cut off the roof (it was heavy part of it and it was rotted).  Then Brad disattached the side arm of the swingset to add back on later.  (this is the pic of the swingset arm disattached)...

Then it was just a square.  The bottom had sand in it but not attached to it.  But therefore, it had to go up and over the sand.  This is the only pic of the sandbox I snapped (while Brad's mom's dog, Nadia, was visiting)...

It was like a puzzle trying to figure out how to move this massive seriously heavy thing.  Finally, what was decided...  we tipped it over.  Sounds so easy...but Brad and my dad were on one side, I was on the other with a rope. They pushed, I pulled and it came crashing down.  The decision was...if it withstood that fall, we'd move it.  If not, we'd trash it.

It withsthood!  So then, we had to roll it 4 times over to move it backwards.  This is the point we cut the roof off (it was too heavy to roll with it, plus it made it impossible to roll without breaking it off).  So again, with me and the rope, and Brad and my dad pushing.  We rolled it and rolled it and rolled it and rolled it.

 It ended up in the same position but just further back.  Then we had to stand it back up.  Hmmm....  another round of figuring.  It was decided to use the rope tied to another heavy duty tree limb.  The closet pic I got of this process is just above ---^  The rope tied to the bottom of the playhouse, looped through the top arm and then around a heavy duty tree branch, back over the playhouse to me.  They push it up, enough for me to pull on the rope and use the tree to hold it up, till they pushed some more, using the tree to secure the rope to hoist it up.  Several rounds of this and it eventually was in place.  Only one arm of the railing broke loose and will need to be placed.  The swingset arm to be put back on as well and then its done.

So, everything out of the way.  Now, on to the deck removal.  We had a previous deck in place.  We knew our land and knew the best place for the pool (we have a big yard and there were several options).  The pool was going to swipe out a corner of our existing deck...which needed to go anyway, it was old and rotted really.  So Brad started tearing out the deck.  Started out easy enough....


First pic is only half of the deck (or actually probably even less than half)....I didn't get a good 'before' picture...

Then he got to the posts.  That were concreted in.  Ugh.  They would NOT come up.  He tried a pully system, a jack, digging it out, nothing.  We had 29 of these posts (we had a pretty big deck) and in 3-4 days, he got out six of them.  Those six came out by soaking them in water and lots of back breaking digging.

Next thing we knew they were calling that our pool was in and they were ready to install! That was pretty quick.  So we asked if when they came to install, they could just remove the concrete at the same time.  Which they did.  The bobcat was worth it!  LOL  They actually came the night before to do the first round of leveling with the bobcat and remove the concrete and go over details.  So day of install came and they could just deal with the actual installation.

Now, that's how you take out some concrete!!!  I told you...totally worth it.  Took them MAYBE 10 minutes.


This is the laid out groundwork for the pool.  How it started anyway....  (it ended up being dug down MUCH deeper...but this was beginning stage anyway)....

Before they came to install the next day, we made sure to trim trees around and above where the pool would be.  Made it easier to do it before than after pool was in.  ;)

Brooke even helped drag tree limbs.  For a little bit anyway.  ;)

We also had 4 yrds of sand delivered to have ready for install....

So, day of installation came and they arrived by 9:30am.  I found it quite amusing that this big huge pool looked like this on their trailer....  ha!

They spent the whole day leveling I swear.  Starting at 9:30a, I think they finished leveling at around 4pm.  It was a JOB!  Like, I said,...sooo glad we got them to do that.  It was pretty perfect and no way would we have done it as easy.  They ended up having to dig down 10 inches on one side of the pool to get it level.  (they dig down, not build up)

After leveling, then they add the sand to the base to smooth it.

Next was laying out the hard bottom (an extra we decided to go with)...

Then they put up the walls of the pool (we got a 24 ft round pool that is 52 inches tall)..

That round thing in the middle is the walls rolled up.  Then, unrolled....and installed (I missed some of this cuz I had taken Brooke to softball and/or piano)...

Then a foam insert along the edges to make the edge of the pool rounded, not a straight 90 degree angle.  (you can see the white foam piece in the below picture - another extra we got)  Next we putting, laying down and stretching the liner tight.  Another big reason we paid for professionals.  We've had the above ground pools from Target before and it is TOUGH to get that liner wrinkle free.  It is heavy and I swear impossible.  I watched this process closely as I wanted to see how they did it.    They put the whole liner in, snapping it to the top of the walls first.  (we also upgraded the liner from a solid blue to a darker patterned color.  looks nicer )

Then he had cut a whole in the pool wall (where the skimmer will be) that he used to insert and duck tape a shop vac to.  So the vacuum was inserted into the pool wall between the wall and the liner.  After it was snapped in place all around, he turned on the vacuum and vacuumed out the extras, pulling the liner tight.  He still did some magic as he walked around the edges fitting and adjusting.  And he did a good job.  It is virtually wrinkle free!  Of course, I can walk around and find one tiny wrinkle or two, but I was impressed!

Then it was time to fill it with water and learn to use the pump, filter, skimmer, vacuum/sweeper, and all that jazz.  It took a good day to fill it up (turning it off overnight just in case).  It supposedly holds somewhere between 14,000-15,000 gallons of water.

We had an issue with the ladder needing an additional part, so it was another day before we could get in.  Then it was done!  And the girls were sooooo ready to get in.

Eventually we are going to build a new deck (hopefully sooner rather than later....though that's up for debate right now ;) ).  We also plan to order steps going into the pool to have easier entry and to allow Brenna a place to go (she can't touch anywhere in the pool right now!).  We also recently added a fountain...which is nice to look at, but also helps with the water temperature as well...keeping it cooler with the circulation.  We've already noticed a HUGE difference.

The pool came with a vacuum, which we've already used and it works wonderfully.  We bought a few floats..nothing too excessive (We had some stuff already) and a light for the pool.  We also ordered a net that attaches to the pool to hold your vacuum and pool toys and such.

So, this is what it looks like today.  Brad spent a lot of time and effort leveling the dirt they dug out back up against the pool to cover the bottom and build a little slope.  Rocks are next.  River rock up alongside the pool to help w any drainage possible...and also for looks.  ;)

Sorry, its kind of a dark picture (this was taken on a cloudy rainy day), but you can see the dirt bottom, and the fountain going in the background.  Its kinda cool bc you can adjust the fountain to shoot up at higher heights or lower.  :)

The side of the pool that shows where the playhouse is now  (you can see the pile of sand to show where it WAS) and the trampoline in the background....

And on our deck before we had lots of chairs, a nice sized table, a swing, and a canopy gazebo thing.  All of which we will use again once we have our new deck.  But for now, most of it is just sitting off to the side...  :P

And for anyone interested...here are our potential deck plans, if you can read that small.  The part to the left is the lower deck with an upper deck to the right.  Lower level deck will be raised off the ground and then one more step so you can sit eye level just above pool (so you can see inside pool while you are sitting there) and will have our big table, chairs, and canopy and the upper level will be at pool level to be able to get in to pool from there (and we are also ordering pool steps as I mentioned that will go there) and have just a couple of chairs and maybe a tiny bistro type table.  The plans have changed a bit in that the lower deck will not come quite as far over to the left as shown here.  It will actually be a tiny bit smaller (maybe)...

Our biggest problem with the pool?  Spending too much time in it.  The girls would never get out I swear if we didn't make them!  It's going to get a lot of use and is well worth the money already!  I can't wait till it looks all pretty.  Right now, it's functionable and all but its just got dirt surrounding it so its not all that pretty yet.  But I can already envision what it will look like with the two level deck we're planning and the river rock surrounding it, etc.  Lucky the same friend that already has a pool has been over a bunch (and she's an architect...bonus!) and has drawn out our deck plans real nicely.  My dad is coming soon and between him and Brad, hopefully they can get it looking nice soon!  Its crazy that all of this happened in a matter of just a couple of weeks!  From nothing to deciding on pool, purchasing, ordering, moving playhouse swingset, removing deck, installing, filling and swimming!  Whew!  A bit of a whirlwind and a lot of work but well worth it.  And when it is totally totally done (the deck and all) it will look REALLY nice.  In the meantime, if you need us, we'll be in the pool.  :)