Super cool! I love your colors and the pattern you designed. I can not wait to see your next pictures.

Thanks for the tip on posting pic I will try till I get it my pool is filling with water as I type. I have been following your postings since you started them and really enjoy them can't wait to see your finished product.
I will check again tonite to see today's pics...

Hey all,
Thanks for all the kind words.
A few pics from today....they formed all the decking and put in the rebar.

View from existing patio that will be capped with exposed aggregate/pea gravel and much more decking.

Another view from the back yard of decking near the shallow end.

Deck will go all the way to the house.

They made a mistake here, the decking will go into the half circle they made around the gas meter. It will meet the future fence. So it will curve over right after the electrical meter.

Next post will be the tile pictures I took.

Here are some photos of the tile work and close ups.
I am still in shock that we may have water by next weekend. My daughter thinks she should be the first one to jump in. I may have to be a bit selfish here and take the first plunge. Come up with a story about checking for sharks or something...???

Close up of a Fossil.....

4 ft. sheer decent and tile

Very impressed with the tile work done in our skimmers.

Wall kinda close up

Close up of Fossil Blue

OMG I love love love your tile work I am so jealous!!!!

Looks good! The tile work is very well done, I'm NOT impressed by the tile work in our skimmers......That's awesome that you could have water by next weekend! Woohoo! Still LOTS of swim season for us Texans! :)

Thanks Newpool and Jenno! I have looked at your builds as well.
Jenno, I love your huge beach entry and stone work. Looks great! And Newpool---I can't believe you already have water....have you taken that first dip yet?

We had decking/patio poured today. The guys we're here at 6:30 am and just now left....8pm! They did a great job with the decking. It looks very nice, but it makes my pool look smaller now. (hate to say that)
We had 3 umbrella sleeves put in to allow for some shade.
I'm ready for water!
We will have to wait another week as they are doing Pebble Sheen next week, clean up, new front fence to match the back fence and then SOD (grass). We are going to do the landscaping ourselves....a few palm trees behind the wall and that is it!
I will post some pictures of decking a bit later.
TGIF!

Can't wait to see the dec pics! I'm so bummed that you say it feels smaller with deck......my pool already feels tiny.....OH WELL, we're maxed out on space and budget as it is....keep the pics coming!

Janet,no we haven't taken a dip yet it is still cloudy and they are coming tomorrow to acid wash it and start up the pump and chemicals. PB says it takes a while for true color to come out and we have to brush it twice a day for a couple of weeks to rid it of all plaster dust don't know if you have to do that with the more expensive interiors but I doubt it but doesn't matter it was all I could afford plus it does look good and I think it is going to be a pretty color I understand we can swim in the pool after they finish tomorrow but can't use the heater on the spa for awhile till everything settles down with dust and chemicals
but as fast as it was built a couple of more weeks is nothing and our yard looks great and I did not feel the decking changed the size of our pool at all you may just be imaging it right now wait till there is water in it and you will change your mind. Will post finished pic when it is as good as its going to get. I will continue to follow your build everyday..so hang in there and smile you are almost there

Jenn---it only looks smaller---but it isn't--lol. Another thing is that we are getting used to looking at it. I know when they first dug and shot gunite, we thought it was HUGE! We also don't have a lot of room around the decking, it encompasses almost our whole side yard, so that may also make the pool look smaller. So if you have some yard left around your decking or a larger lot, you may not think pool looks smaller.
Newpool--yes we will brush our sheen too. An excuse to swim....that's all I need! Your color does look good! And I do have to say, your yard looks amazing--it's even so green in this horrible Houston heat/dry spell. Our pool is on the side of our house, so they took the whole front fence down, about 38 feet so they use that whole area as a "path". Its a complete mess, but as expected.
We did a lot of decking, and its level with the pool so I think that is the reason for my pool looking smaller.
It now has to compete with all the concrete around it. True, once we have water, I will forget all about the inconveniences. We wanted a bigger pool, but thanks to utility easements, building lines and a weird lot, we couldn't go bigger unless we did a freeform. We wanted a Roman style, so we are maxed out!
They did come this morning and finish the trim tile on the stairs, ledge and bench. Looks nice.
Looks like Pebble sheen and prep will happen on Mon./Tues.
I promise to get some pictures loaded on here later!
I don't want to "overkill" with photos......but I know I love looking at others' pool build's and seeing all the great designs and pools out there. I especially love watching my fellow Houston and Texas 'neighbors' build's!! It's exciting!
Have a great Saturday everyone!!!

The decking looks great. It will get lighter as it dries completely. We are happy with it and the amount we decided on. If you haven't been following, it's called Exposed Aggregate or Pea Gravel. We got approx. 800 SF, and that included capping our existing 12 X 10 patio outside our back door.
Photos:

View from behind the pool in shallow end to behind the house.

Walkway from the front/driveway. Gate will be about half way down the path.

View from our bedroom window. The fence will be placed about where that big white board is straight over to the house.

View from back door....we have one big patio now and it blends right in with the pool deck.

We hope to be swimming late in the week or by next weekend.

Janet the decking looks beautiful it goes perfect with your pool colors. My decking will be done next Tuesday I am only getting it around the pool could not afford to cover my patio which is over 900sq ft by itself had to cut corners to stay in budget but seeing yours it makes me jealous!!!

Janet, great tile choices! We did travertine coping and we love it! Yes, it is slippery when wet, but it does not tear up bathing suits or flake off. Search yesapool and you can see our pool.

Please tell me how much this cost? I am trying to find a contractor for Spring area and I have heard 50K but there is no way I am paying that much. thanks your pool looks great!

Is the aggregate the less expensive option? it looks so good.

The decking looks great with your pool...blends seamlessly, but still showcases your beautiful coping and the pool. Looking forward to your pebblesheen photos!

Mary, I noticed you needed a PB that does Spring I can recommend my PB her name is Kathleen Best her web site is
www.bestbackyardpools.com her phone number is 281 433-7429
she has been in the business over 20 years I think you would be very pleased our pool was finished in only 2 weeks and not one problem came up and you can't beat that.
Good luck with new adventure you can see mine on this site under New pool started 7-7-2009 and she can get you a really nice pool for much less than 50k.

Mary, around 43K.....a little more now as we added some extra concrete to our driveway and we had to pay for an electrical and gas reroute! This had to be done before the pool was dug.
Yes, that is pea gravel/aggregate (exposed)...it was the lowest priced decking other than plain brushed concrete. I didnt want that "concrete" only look.....too grey. It does look nice and has a lot of small colored pebbles in it. I had them use the "rainbow" colored stones and ask for the smallest pebbles. (smoother) There is another color of pea gravel called river rock, which has more browns, tans, and darker color pebbles. Not for me. It looked dirty and I knew in Houston, I would be much hotter to walk on.
Once our decking dries completely, it will look very light. It's kinda splotchy now, but they will come out and power wash it next week to get all the excess concrete outta there and make it look perfect.

Thanks yesapool, newpool and pisces for the compliments. Pebble Sheen will most likely be done tomorrow or Wednesday! No one is working today, which is fine with me. I got to sleep in for a change.

A lot happened today. Pebble tec was here today to prep the pool for pebble sheen tomorrow. They cleaned out the interior of the pool, removed all the stinky water and debris. They cut the ends of the PVC pipes and did a few other things I'm sure we're important.

Then the Clean Up Crew was here for the final clean up and they did a GREAT job. They cleaned the tile, coping, acid washed the deck to get all the excess cement, dirt and pebbles off, they took the huge pile of garbage that sat in my front yard, they took all the left over concrete out of the yard, they also took my old fence and posts, then they leveled/graded the yard with the left over dirt and made it look really nice. (SOD/grass won't be here til everything is done)
Then the fence company came by and placed the posts in concrete to get ready to "seal up the yard" after Pebble is in.
Here are some pictures:

Fence posts where new fence will go.

Close look:

That is going to be one big gate:

Nice clean pool, the Pond smell is gone!!!

Tile on the steps. Used the same fossil blue, just had it cut down to 2 inch pieces and placed as diamonds.

Tile on swim deck:

Clean up

Another look at clean up and our future placement of the gate:

More after we are Pebbled tomorrow!

Mary, there are some AWESOME builders in your area
Here are a few
Ival @ Iguana pools
Paul @ Texas Pools
Charlie @ Wise Pools
Michael @ Hipp Pools
Kelly @ Atlantis Pools

All of them live and work in your area and have done so for decades.

See ya,
Kelly

Just wanted to let you know that i finally started a thread for our new build...You'll recognize the city name! Thanks for your help and I've LOVED watching your progress! Not too much longer now! Any advice on CCP that you'd like to share?? :-)

I expected water in the pool tomorrow after they acid wash the Pebble Sheen, but with all this rain we are getting here in Houston--yes it's raining--shocker, I bet I already have a little splash pad out there. I hope the rain doesn't hurt my newly pebbled pool....?????

Pool was indeed Pebbled today and if you are building a pool and can be home to watch, I highly recommend it. I think it was the coolest process to watch so far. It does go fast when they spray in the "goo" but I took lots of pictures. They were here about 4 hours and there were like 14 of them working--3 trucks.
They really know what they are doing! They string all these ropes, wires overhead to put the equipment on and they pump out all the excess water they spray during the process to this big man made wooden bucket with plastic inside.
Check out the boots they wear, they have 4 spikes on a platform so they dont leave footprints in the pool. Reminds me of disco boots.
Pictures from today:
Getting started

Blue Pool:

The bucket of doom: All the excess PS and water went here...it's now blue and my kids wanted to swim in it tonight. Ack!

Excess water being pumped out and into the bucket of doom:

Smoothing the steps

Almost Done:

So tomorrow they will acid wash, finish installing the LED lights and returns. Then we fill!
I hope they get that fence up---I want to swim as soon as that baby is full!!!
More tomorrow!

How exciting! It's going to be beautiful, congrats on surviving the process. Please post pics of the finished product!

WOW! How cool that your pool is almost finished! How did the finish survive the rain? My husband had to siphon the water with a hose from the trenches around our yard. I was a little worried about the tile...Your pool is going to look amazing. I can't wait to see the water color. Keep the pics coming!

hey janet, what color is your finish? its amazing how smoothly your pool build went. i'll check later to see the water in it. Oooo, i know you are excited! How are the kids taking it? Jumping off the walls yet?

Even swimming with the chemicals would be prefurable in the Texas heat. I'll bet you can't wait. Be careful not to swim with the acid wash, you might end up looking like Michael J. By the way, in case you're curious, He's still dead.

Thank you guys! We are excited for the fill up which will be today. Acid wash will be much later this afternoon.
Color is Aqua Blue Pebble Sheen.
I am hoping the rain we had last night didn't hurt the PS. I'm sure it's fine and the acid wash will remove any bad spots or rain water rings.
The clean up crew was here this morning picking up that box of stuff and all the left over PS from yesterday.

Jenn0--Jealous of the VACA! Mexico is my fav! We are divers and love Cozumel and Cancun! Say Hola~ for us! Have a rita or 3 for me! Your decking looks good BTW.

Win--Thanks, can't wait to show off the water color. Like I said, you can look at my Aqua Blue if you want!

Teppy--kids are excited, so are mom and dad! The pool will be my new "leverage" tool when my kids are starting to get ornrey.

Jparkfire--no swimming in acid, I can promise that! Too funny about the MJ comment!

I will post pics tonight when we are filling!

janetlong, I just wanted to say Congrats (and thanks for your input on my travertine coping dilema). Love you tile work by the way!

I can't believe how fast your pool went in. I am sure you guys are ready to jump in as soon as it's done!

Good Morning!
I posted last night with pics and all, then my computer locked up twice while in the process, so I gave up!

We did get acid wash and buffed yesterday! They also did a clean up--they took the big box of goo left over from Pebble Sheen. They installed the lights and a few other misc things.
Pool began filling around 2pm yesterday and is looking great! We have 2 hoses going and calculated it should be done around 2pm today! 24 hours to fill approx. 18-19K gallons.
Something I recommend, if you can.....check your water meter before they fill and write down the number. This way you can check after an hour or two and calculate the number of gallons of water per hour that your are using. Then you can have some idea of when the pool will be full and know how many gallons your pool actually is.

Yes, my kids are ready to jump in, so is mom and dad! The pool co. will be out tomorrow morning to do our "start up". He will bring us all our goodies/tools, start up the equipment, make sure everything is working properly, put in the start up chemicals and give us a brief overview of everything. Then we can SWIM!
However, I'm sure we will do some *illegal* swimming tonight.....Shhhhhh!

The Aqua Blue Pebble Sheen looks great. Not too much green right now even with zero chemicals. We are very happy with it.
It matches the lighter parts of my blue tile perfectly. I couldn't have done that again if I tried!!!!

Right now there is about 1 inch of water on the swim deck, so about 7 more inches to go overall......Holy Cow, I can't believe it!

I will post some pics later! (Sorry)

Today was crazy! I took the kids to jump from 10-12 thinking I had about 2 hours before I had to turn off water, but when I got home at NOON, the pool was Full! Glad I came home when I did.
In the deep end, there is a greenish tint but the water isn't that cloudy. It looks Wonderful!!!!

Another thing is our fence was installed today, so we have some privacy. It looks awesome! They did a great job on the monsterous gate they had to make. It's like 5 feet across.
My kids were so good today as I told them we could swim when daddy got home! So that's what we did, we swam for over 2 hours. It was amazing.
Ok, so who was first in the pool you ask??? Well, the kids were getting in slowly on the steps when daddy took the plunge in the deep end the "cannon ball" style! So I guess it was Mr. Long who had the pleasure to be the first one in!

Photos:

Acid wash and buffing

First bit of Water......how exciting!!!

Tile on steps:

More of completed fill next.........

One thing I did want to mention, is the Pentair Intellibrite lights are phenominal! We had 2 installed...one in deep end and one in shallow end facing the wall.....We went outside tonight after dark and played around with all the different colors, shows and speeds. I think I enjoyed that more than swimming. We just sat there and watched them!
I can't begin to tell you how impressed I am with those lights. Super Cool!!!! (didnt take any photos tho....)

Here are a few pictures of the pool almost full.....before the fence guys got here....

Unfortunately I didnt take any pics when it was full and when we were swimming. Musta forgot.....

After start up and chemicals tomorrow, I will take more and post....water should look really blue then!!!

We had lights in out Houston pool and the skimmer filled up with June Bugs. YUCK!

yep..that's Aqua Blue, alright! It's going to look perfect with your tile, especially when you get the water chemistry right. And night with the lighting is my favorite time in the pool...even with JUNE BUGS (which we have tons of - they dive-bomb us in the spa, but we've also trapped a few grasshoppers that have been chewing on my cannas...yay)!! lol. Happy swimming!

We have been enjoying the pool this weekend a lot!
The equip. was turned on and chemicals added on Saturday and by the afternoon, the water changed to this beautiful blue....the Bright Blue that I wanted---it really *popped*. We love our color choice...Aqua Blue PS and it matches our blue tile so perfectly.

I still can't believe this is my backyard.
Here are a few pics with the sheer decents on.

LED lights at night:

Daughter enjoying life...

Colleen swimming and Preston reading his book....

Aqua Blue.....

A few have mentioned Umbrella Sleeves and wanting to see what they look like, where they are placed and how they look in the decking.
We had 3 of them installed right into the decking about 3 inches away from coping. Love them! A simple idea, but a great one!!!
Here is one of mine....

Cap on so that water does not get in.

Cap off and the umbrella pole slides right in. I would guess the hole/pvc pipe is about 8-10 inches deep.

The umbrella does not sway or move when in the sleeve. It's very sturdy.
Hope this helps anyone considering sleeves.
I could not imagine my pool with out them!!!

Wow! Love the water color! It looks so pretty with the tile. Great job!

Janet,

Can I assume those are the BLUE and GREEN LED's showing in the pool pictures. Can you post a picture with the WHITE ones on?

Since you are also in Texas, do you get a lot of bugs at night with the LED's on? I heard that attract less bugs than regular lights, but still do attract some. We almost never used our light in our first pool because of the bugs. It was a regular light, not LED.

Cmoses,

We have the Pentair Intellibrite, color changing LED lights. They have 12 mode's that you can choose from.
The colors are:
Blue, Green, Magenta, White, Red. There are also 7 spectacular color shows for different mood's. They are: Sam mode---goes through all the colors in the spectrum, Party Mode---fast changing colors
Romance Mode--slow changing colors and more calming colors
California Sunset mode--transitions of red, orange and magenta tones.
American Mode--red, white and blue colors
Caribbean Mode--changes between shades of blues and greens.
Royal Mode----changes thru all the colors, but they are lighter and brighter tones.

They really are spectacular!

I didnt notice any more bugs with them on. Of course, we always have bugs in TX, but I guess for us, the lighting and the water make the bugs seem non-existant!
We don't leave it on "white color only"....we enjoy the blue, green, and pinks most often.
I will try to post a pic with just white later on tonight.

So very pretty! Thank you for the offer to see your pebble sheen. I think we are going to take a leap of faith (which is very opposite of my personality type) and go for the Aqua. If something changes and we need to see it before Friday, I'll get CCP to put me in contact with you! Hope you are enjoying your pool! Can't wait for ours! I posted a few new pics this a.m.!

Janet, it is absolutely gorgeous, congrats on all the color choices. So refreshing to see a contemporary style. Enjoy. Barb

Thanks guys!!! We are enjoying it a lot!!! We are happy with all our choices, not to say it wasn't agonizing and stressful.....and I would second guess my choices from time to time. Glad it all worked out.

We are doing Pool School on Thursday morning, then it's all ours!!!! Time to plan some pool parties!
Let the fun begin!

Janet, looks AWESOME! I LOVE to see the amazing transformation from pool filling to after chemicals. The water color turned out LOVELY. Congratulations on all of it, it's really great!

Turned out so pretty, Janet! Enjoy!!

Thanks for the compliments!
We have been so busy swimming and grilling that I haven't had time to post any updated pictures.
We have been doing a lot of landscaping with some rocks and pavers, planted a few plants and installed our Bose speakers.
We bought the Outdoor Bose Free Space 51 speakers. They are green and much bigger than I thought they'd be....but of course with Bose, they sound great---no matter where you are in or around the pool! They are the size of a 5 gallon bucket and we have them sitting on the deck for now, but we will bury them in the ground about 3-4 inches and secure them so they won't find a new home!

We are definitely ready for our salt....I'm tired of the chlorine smell and other effects it has.

I need to seal my travertine coping, just trying to decide which product to use....made a new post about that hoping to get some ideas and recommendations.

I will post some more pictures later this evening!

A few photos of our progress the past week:
Full view of pool and new fence---hubby powerwashed the side fence and it looks tons better...the big green thing lurking in the distance is 1 of our new speakers.

New grass all around makes a big difference too.

View looking from deep end

A bit of landscape around the equip. pad

A taste of Texas....more landscaping...

One more of the Aqua Blue Pebble Sheen:

Wow you have just knocked this massive project out like it was nothing! :) Looks great. Are y'all having so much fun swimming?????????

I am so happy that you are about done. We have had so many rain delays that I am not even sure I want a pool anymore(lol).

There is about 15 people in my backyard right now doing something. They are supposed to pour the deck tomorrow and PT either Saturday or Monday. I took all of next week off so I can install the fence, landscape lighting, sprinkler system and I am sure a lot more stuff that I can't remember right now.

Jenn--Thanks and yes we are enjoying the pool---the kids especially! It has been SOOO much work, but worth it.
Thanks to the PB for the steady pace and being so on top of things!
paradigm, We had a huge to do list and have been working on it the past 2 weeks. We are DIYers....when we can! Sounds like you have to work while you are on vacation next week....all worth it in the end! What kind of decking are you installing again? It's a neat process to watch and there is a lot of prep work--took my guys 1 day to prep and 1 day to pour. 12 hours each day too!

Good luck to you all and I am following your builds as well!!!!

We are doing a stamped concrete with a Grand Ashler pattern. They worked on the stake out and rebar for about 9 hours yesterday, City inspection was today and now they have moved pouring to Friday.

Hey Janet - BEAUTIFUL pool. I'm glad to see it came in just right for you guys. I'm also in Cypress. Actually, our home is up closer to Tomball (2920 and Cypress Rosehill area), but my law firm is near Jones and Grant.

I just had my FIRST meeting with a PB tonight, and we're excited, but COMPLETELY overwhelmed.

Do you mind giving me the full name of your PB? If you had a really good experience, I'd love to speak to them and get a bid. I'd to get at least 4 or 5 bids before I pick a PB.

My wife and I have an interesting situation in that we have a LOT of room in the back yard (we are on 4/5 acre lot in the forest), but we have two massive trees that we want to work around AND build an appx 800 sq foot outdoor living room/kitchen/bar. We need JUST the right PB to make our pool integrate with our house, our lot, and our forest.

We really want to do this right, and it looks like your PB did a great job! (Although I'm very impressed at your design work!)