Hi Linda
This is just off the top of my head but have you ever wanted to have a garden pond.. If so now would be an ideal time to start one. Fill in you cement pool up to all put maybe 3 or 4 feet and then put in a pond rubber liner and you have a garden/kio/goldfish pond. OH wait that's my dream. Sandy

Hi Sandy, Thanks. There are several nice pool to pond conversions on this website. A lot of people here have koi ponds and it seems like there's at least one at every nursery in the area, so I have all the benefits of having one without any of the money or work. We've had California native plants in the front yard for many years, and will mix those with other low maintenance plants in the back, and have one small area with shade plants that would get some water. It's more fun for me to sew and make garden junk than to feed, water or mow something in the yard, or clean a pump filter. Thanks, Linda
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Bye Bye Pool!!

I have broken cemetn for stepping stones in my garden paths. They have worked fine.

Linda,

So you are filling in that pool?--or are you just having the deck re-done? My sister used concrete she found on the side of the road, hauled it, and planted it as stepping stones in her lawn. It took a lot of work and the concrete is H-E-A-V-Y! She placed the concrete piece atop the grass and cut out the shape. Then she moved the concrete and cut out the top section of sod, dug down so it was as deep as it was tall of the concrete piece. Then she lay it in there. If it wasn't level, she'd throw some sand/dirt in the area that needed lifting/leveling. It takes a lot of work but the results are FANTASTIC! The path of stones never looked like whatever they were originally. Her's too were where you could still run a lawnmower over it. I guess the same sort of method would apply to gravel, dirt-or wahtever other material it will be placed in. The cool thing about ding a project like this is that it is FREE because you are recycling something you already have.

Good luck and show off some photos when it is all done!

Love, Jules

Hi Jules, Thanks for the encouragement. The pool is going bye bye (on or near Nov. 4th) along with a couple of sidewalks and all the decking. No one has used it for a few years, so we just go out and watch the money floating around in it. We'll be doing lots of bricks on sand, but I hate to bury or haul away all this concrete, then haul in more bricks. I recently got more than 1500 bricks for free from a few different people. I'm definitely leaning towards using the cement for a lot of it. I'm looking forward to having flat land instead of concrete and pool. Linda

Hi Linda,
I can't wait to see your yard without that pool! Please post follow-up photos.
I love broken concrete, and I take all that I can get. I use it to make stacked walls that hold back soil or leaves, and I use it to outline flower beds. It provides habitat for fence lizards (and a few black widows). I also constructed a rubble patio from used bricks, tiles, flagstones, and concrete (photos available at my web page http://picasaweb.google.com/renee.fraser/ReneeSYard).
Renee

Hi Renee, Wow, now I know it can look nice!! Your yard is wonderful. It has rocks, gravel, cement, stepping stones, flagstone, tiles, wood and bricks and they all go together very nicely. We'll be keeping that raised bond beam behind the pool. It's built in seating. I'll be revisiting your pics soon for ideas. We're about 4 weeks away from demo. Thanks, Linda

Here is a pic of the small patio I made in my Dad's memorial garden. It was pretty easy. The only hard part was making it all level because the pieces were all different.
Good luck with your project.

Here is a link that might be useful: memorial garden

Thanks Junkergal, That's a nice memorial for your dad. The cement looks really nice. I found a good 'bricks on sand' guy and will use him for a lot of the paving. The pool demo company can probably break the cement into pieces that we're able to lift. Is there a close to ideal size to have them broken into? Thanks for the pics. Linda

Here's what we did with all of the cement that we had left over from removing our in ground pool - we made raised garden beds. We took the cement, flipped it upside down, then stacked it form the beds. It's a great way to recycle cement and it looks like flagstone.

Hi Jazzy, Thanks for the reply. There are so many good ideas for the cement. I am going to use it. Your planters look like some kind of stone, and your yard looks big. In the pool photo, I'm standing against the fence on one end of the yard. There's about 10 feet (on the left side of the pool) to the house. The slope takes up the rest of the yard. The pool demo in about 3 weeks away. Can't wait. Linda

Linda,
We have an acre of land so we do have quite a big yard. We did the pool removal ourselves and it took us a couple of summers of hard work but, I'm so glad that it's finally filled in. I'm sure that you'll be happy to yours filled in as well.

I'll have to post some pictures of our pool removal.

Hi Jazzy, We would remove the pool ourselves if that steep slope wasn't looming above. The contractor said that he couldn't remove the whole pool because of the slope. They take out the top two feet all around and put giant holes in the bottom. I'd like to see your pool removal pics. You may want to post them on a new thread so more people see them and email them to me if you like. It's so funny how people think removing a pool is breaking some kind of important rule, lol. Thanks, Linda

Linda, are you gona use any of the concrete to do a little terracing on the hill. even a few pieces in would help hold back the dirt. What will you fill the pool with?. I wonder it will do like our old well as a kid...fill it with trash and dirt and do it all over again next year, lol. No telling what we kids threw down there that we wish we had now in our garden. Nothing alive tho. lol. June

Hi June, The contractor dumps the concrete debris into the deep end after punching big holes in the bottom. They get fill dirt from guys who are digging pools or grading, and compact the soil properly so we won't get that 'sinking' feeling. We finished draining the pool today. I was able to siphon most of it off because we live on a slight hill, so the electric pump only ran for a couple of hours. The gate opening was cut wider last week so the equipment can get through. About 90% of the 'stuff' is out of the back yard, with over 3 weeks left. We had a yard sale last weekend and will have another the weekend after this one, and have sold at the swap meet almost every week. All those treasures went to live somewhere else. The money has been pretty good too. It will go towards the job. Linda