Great minds must think alike! Your pool design does indeed seem very familiar.

Sorry to hear about the water issue. Seems like your PB is doing exactly what is necessary to prevent issues. I'm sure you will have to 'flash' the pool to prevent cave-ins before the gunite is shot.

Keep the progress pics coming and good luck!

Thanks. Just wish I had the yard size you have.

Not sure what 'flash' is. Is it giving it a thin layer of concrete to the dirt before rebar and plumbing?

Flashing is indeed a thin lawyer of gunite added to the walls of the pool to stabilize the hole before the gunite process. We didn't have to flash due to ground water, but rather for stormy weather. They flashed after the rebar and rough plumbing were done.

Our yard is rather large, and the house/pool is just in the back 1/2 of the property, but I can tell you from personal experience that spending 6 hours on a lawnmower cutting grass in the middle of July (heat indices in the 105+ range), on top of weed eating, etc is not fun.

Finished digging today and we have what's left of the storms coming through tonight. Hopefully the walls hold up well. As you can see from the photo I have a good mix of sand and clay which shapes well, so hopefully the rain doesn't beat it up tonight.

olemissrebel - I hear you on the yard work, unfortunately ours is only .16 acres total, I'm thinking .25 acres would be perfect yard size for our house.

Here is a photo of the completed dig (more photos in the link)

Here is a link that might be useful: lancer1991 build photos

Got a majority of the rebar in yesterday. Initially scheduled to Shotcrete on Monday, but a little snafu in who was pulling the electrical permit (he thought I was, I thought he was). Got it straight today and should be able to inspect on Monday and shoot Tues. I thought he'd be back today to put rebar for the steps and sheer descent, but I guess he will finish Monday AM.

Here is where I am as of yesterday

The more I look at it, I kind of wish I pushed the pool a little to the right of the picture so I had equal distances off the fence on both sides, but kinda thinking I may put a bench where the dirt pile is to the right of the palms and infill landscaping around the palms and back along the fence. Of course the raised bond beam will cover the palm area so I may berm a little behind there to bring the landscaping up. Wish I had the money to get a landscape architect, but doing it yourself is somewhat gratifying and only have yourself to blame.

Got the pool shot today. Luckily I had the webcam up as I kept looking at where they had the longer stakes at the back of the pool and figured they were for the raised bond beam. Sure enough, I look at the webcam from work as they are getting set up and they are putting the backboard up and it was way off to the left. Called the builder and asked what there thinking was and before you know it, they were pushing it back to the center of the radius. Still not liking that I didn't push the layout a little more to the right, even the builder mentioned it this afternoon when I spoke with him. I figured I can make it look right though by adding third palm to the left.

After the shotcrete has anyone noticed cracking in the surface of the concrete? Posted a pic on my album.

Should be able to stop the pump on the well points tomorrow and let it fill.

Here is an updated pic:

Here is a link that might be useful: lancer1991 pool build

Got the plumbing done yesterday and some of the equipment in. Looks like they went with the IntelliChlor instead of the Jandy. Have 3 pumps, I assume one for the pool, one for the waterfall, and one for the waterfall. Decided to get a heat pump installed as others I've talked to in my neighborhood say there pools are too hot come July and usually can only enjoy them at night, so the cooling feature should be great along with extended the swim season.

Spent today reworking some of the irrigation lines and repairing a line that was sacrificed during the staking process of the pool shape. Still scratching my head on the decking layout and landscaping, I'm sure I'll come up with something.

Here's a photo, some others on the link below:

Here is a link that might be useful: lancer1991 pool build

Do you have a pressure side cleaner? If so, it appears the middle pump is the booster pump for it. Congrats on the pool build, looks like it's coming along quite nicely!

I guess the pressure side cleaner would be the Polaris.

Last couple of days the waterline and raised bond beam tile has been going in. They also installed the sheer descent today. They'll be back tomorrow to grout what they didn't finish today. Went with a grey to match the French Silver from Florida Stucco that we are going to go with.

We're getting there and should be done before the end of the month.

Here's a photo of the raised bond beam:

WOW! That's beautiful! I love the colors you've chosen for the tile. It's going to look fantastic with the water in it!

I'm looking at your photos and wishing I could build that close to my fence! We have an 8' easement at the back, and a 5' builder's easement on one side.

So what I'm left with is a small pool, and a HUGE area to fill with landscaping!

birdbath - Thanks. My builder initially wasn't sure how the green tiles would look with the gray finish, but he laid them up along his pool and said it looked pretty good (he went with a blue/gray tile on his). We can't wait for the water.

smbnobles - Luckily we don't have any utility or drainage easements and our city has not setbacks on pools. We have a small backyard and it helped with no restrictions. I will like having little to no yard to mow in the back.

Added a another shot to my album with the tile finished and some rough grading done around the pool. Makes it feel like we're almost there.

Here is a link that might be useful: lancer1991 pool build

Lancer,

I know you're trying to come up with an idea for the off centered pool along the fence line. Here's a couple of ideas.

Plant a large dramatic/tall plant/tree that looks like a focal point surrounded by flowers... or

Place one of those tiki totem poles there...

Maybe a little bench with a walking path to it.

Just a couple of ideas for you.

:)

Thanks poolmissy, I was actually thinking of putting another Washingtonia Robusta to at the left edge of the raised bond beam and hope that will center the view up on the trees to take away from the corner. Might put some Pampas grass in the corner of the fence, but may just leave it empty and let the trees balance it.

Funny you mention a bench as I was thinking of either a bench or a gliding rocker to the open area on the right.

Kind of hard to picture it all before the deck goes in. Everything along the back will just be the coping and planters. All the decking will be to the left and in front. Decking is suppose to go in around Tuesday. Scrambling to get some bags of Davis' "San Diego Buff" or "Sequoia Sand" to have the concrete plant batch some colored concrete.

"Decided to get a heat pump installed as others I've talked to in my neighborhood say there pools are too hot come July and usually can only enjoy them at night, so the cooling feature should be great along with extended the swim season."

I seriously hope that the pipe from the intellichlor doesnt go to the heat pump.

Not sure what re-routing they will need to do, being new to a pool I have no idea what goes where. When I called him to say we wanted to go with the heat pump, they were apparently a considerable way along with the plumbing that day and haven't made any adjustments yet. Being we are 3 miles from the coast, I had to build a platform to mount it on to match my house heat pump.

Just ordered the integral coloring for the colored concrete decking. Went with a LM Scofield color match of Davis' "Omaha Tan". Scofield provides theirs in a liquid format unlike the Davis Mix Ready bags.

Hopefully we like the color. Seen some online photos of the San Diego Buff which we initially were thinking, but this one is a tad darker.

Got the deck poured on Friday. Color is starting to come around. Color won't be exact match to "Omaha Tan" because I ordered coloring for a 5 sack mix and they went with a 6 sack mix. Supplier of integral color said it should just turn out lighter. If I poured only 8 yards I would have had enough color (had enough originally for 10 yards), but we needed 9 yards so I ended up 1 bucket short of the proper amount of color.

Plaster scheduled for Friday.

Here is a pic from Saturday morning after applying some cure and seal.

More pics from this evening in the link below showing color lightening up.

Here is a link that might be useful: lancer1991 pool build

Plaster is complete and water starting to go in. The finish is still Florida Stucco Gem finish, but I didn't go with French Silver. Can't remember the name, but basically it is French Silver with blue and green added.

Overall photo

Filling

Close up

Here is a link that might be useful: lancer1991 pool build

Your pool is BEAUTIFUL! I love your tile and the deco's! Can't wait to see how the pool looks completely filled!

Finished filling at 10:30 this morning, took about 17 hours to fill. Used 12,200 gallons.

Water is greener than what is showing on my monitor. Hope it stays that color, but some photos I've seen before the water appears to loose it green color after initial fill.

PB comes back out on Monday to fire everything up.

It's GORGEOUS! I think the water will be beautiful any color! It's just so clean and pretty! Looks like you added another palm! LOVE IT! Is the water feature on yet?

Thanks syntagma. Nothing has been started yet. They'll come out Monday to do that. They actually need to up the size of the breaker they put in the panel as it about 10amps to small. Also they have to install the light as they forgot to put it in before filling.

Looks great Lancer!! Our water had a green tinge to it as well, it went away after around 24 hours. Also the pool finish will cure out for the first couple of weeks of brushing and will likely change color too. You're wrapping it up just in time for the swim season to start!

Here are some photos of the pool after being started up and with the water crystal clear. Now only if I can figure the chemicals thing out.

Congratulations Lancer! Looks great! What a wonderful design, I love the way it fits in your backyard. Anyone jumped in yet?

Looks great - congratulations! How high is the raised beam? Have you had the falls running yet?

susannap2 - Thanks. Glad to have it 90% complete (landscaping left). We were in this weekend. Ran the heatpump for a couple of days and got the water up to about 79 or so.

jmas65 - Thanks also. Bond beam is about 18" high. Yes we've had the waterfall going. It is nice that it creates some noise to block things out, but sometimes it's just too loud. Luckily the builder saw how strong it was at startup and added a ball valve to slow it down. Also, my 4 year old doesn't like it running as she's still getting use to the pool. Hopefully soon we can scrounge up some money to go automated as having to get out and walk to the equipment (which is currently surrounded by dirt) is becoming a pain in our short 1 week use.

WOW! That is a nice looking pool! We have finally decided upon a PB and is awaiting our Homeowners Association for approval. We chose almost the same design as you did! I hope our pool turns out as nice as yours! I am looking forward to showing pictures real soon!

firsttimepool - Thanks. Funny you mention the HOA as we just received our letter of approval on Saturday. Of course I spoke with the President of the Board before that an received a formal approval, just blows my mind that it took a little over 2 months to receive an official letter.

WOW!- We are supposed to dig this Friday and No approval yet. I have been after them for 2 weeks now! By the way, I think we chose the exact same pool, we chose a 28' weeping wall and added an extra bench at 3rd ring at the 6'deep end!

How deep is your pool Lancer1991?

firstimepool - Thanks. My pool goes from about 3'-6" to 6'-0" to the top of the coping. I'm kind of thinking another bench would have been nice as I think it will definitely be getting used.

I love your green tiles! This is the first pool other than mine that I have seen with green tiles. My pool builder hated mine and made numerous jokes and comments about it the whole time. Now, he loves it and says how good it really did turn out. They actually used three photos of my pool on their website. Your water color looks very similar too. I mixed two diamond brite colors to get mine. Your pool really did turn out beautiful.
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Teppy - Your pool looks great and I must admit, I printed a photo of your bond beam to show the builder for the tile layout. I think it is more dramatic on yours because of the contrasting colors, but still happy with ours.

You are kidding! Thats a huge compliment. Mine is very "contrasty" and I did have second thoughts about it a time or two. I just really thought that the red brick needed the red decos added in. To me though, I think that yours has a very nice and tranquil look to it. You've got yours finished just in time so that you don't have to wait too long to use it. I have not been in mine yet. Everyone else has, but its still too cold for me. I hope that your 4 year old gets used to the water falls soon. We really enjoy that alot and love the sound of it running.

Hello, would love to have the actual name of the Stucco... Love it! Thank you