Northern CA owner/build- 98.5% done with some pictures

14 years ago

Here are some very nearly completed pictures of our owner/build pool. Overall a great experience and after knowing what I know now, (which is A LOT more then when I started)I am still very pleased with choosing to do an owner/build.

Before the pics, here is my disclaimer on the 1.5% unfinished parts:

1. spa spillover will be completed tommorrow.

2. slide epoxy applied Fri.- slide ready in 1 week

3. stacked stone on retaining walls- I will do that this winter.

4. Sealing the deck. Still have to wait 2 more weeks.

....o.k. maybe thats about 8% unfinished

Whole yard pic. Best thing about this picture is when I put my grass back in. Hard on the back but worth it now!

Another full pic shot. You can see the slide a little better in this one.

Above the pool on the slope. Gives a view of the slide and some of my Home Depot landscaping. Dont' hate on Home Depot, I got all of my queen palms half-off!

Picture of the steps that acess the slide. From here they are easy to see but from the poolside people ask me "where are the steps?" This was the effect I was going for which was to try to not have the steps be noticeable.

Waterfall and cave. All done by a gunite/concrete carver. He was very skilled. If you are going to do ANY carved concrete, find the guy in your area who can do it well. I have seen bad carving and good carving and the difference is night and day.

This is the shelf done in Mt. Moriah quartzite. My rock guy cut little pieces of irridescant(sp?) tile and set them in. Looks shweet! - he said that everyday he was here.

Closer shot of the stone work but still not quite finished.

Shot of the spa with a pretty bad angle on the spa watefall. We plumbed the spa waterfall as a hot water return so we can have it run and keep the spa hot.

Four jets grouped together in a built-in spa? Yes it's true!

Two jets per seating area for the rest of the spa. The took some fancy plumbing but having a little more jet variety was the result.

Another shot of the spa/waterfall with the jets and the blower on. Won't be heating it for another week until I know my water is balanced perfectly.

Here is a shot of my solar panels. I put these up myself and as long as you follow the installation manual EXACTLY, it is simple to do. Mine was a little easier to plumb because it is on a dedicated loop seperate from my filtration pump. I have an extra cartridge filter for the solar plumbing.

And here is a crappy shot of my equipment pad. 4in. plumbing to the waterfalls and spa. 3in. suction and 2 1/2 returns. VERY efficient and worth the extra cost in what I will save down the road.

I have tons more but I guess thats enough. Just like in real life, I got some GREAT advice from this board and some bad advice from this board. I owe a real debt of gratitude to those who helped me build this pool. So after learning what I have learned, if you are going to do an owner/build, DO YOUR HOMEWORK. If you have questions on your owner/build I will answer anything I can and gladly share my experiences if it helps. Thanks for looking.

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Comments (8)

sgregor
14 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
WOW!!! Very impressive!
pparrish
14 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
WOW!!! How beautiful is that!!! I love it. What did you use for coping? That's the look I was going for, but my PB said cast concrete or stone was waaaaaay expensive. Is that true? We are using travertine but our pool is freeform so the tile guy says he has to use 4"X 12" which means a lot of grout lines. UGH!! You should be very proud. It's georgous!
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paradigmdawg
14 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Very, very nice.
marco97
14 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
WOW - your pool is awesome!! Job well done!

what is the ballpark $$ to complete such a project being your own GC?

Congrats!
Marco
ventinc
Original Author
14 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Thanks for the comments.

pparish- All coping and caps are poured concrete. No it is not cheap but you can easily get more expensive then the method we chose. Ours was a bit more because of the difficulty of the cap overhang which was 4in. to accomadate the thickness of the stone we chose. Here is a picture of how the forms were set...

We priced out travertine as well and it was about the same as the poured concrete that we did. Don't worry the travertinve will look VERY GOOD, just ask your tile guy to keep the grout lines as tight as possible if thats the look you want.

Marco97- You are asking a very loaded question so I will do my best to give you an answer. Our budget to build this pool was 70k. We finished it for 90k. Now this price is only relative to our pool, and if somebody else built the exact same pool I promise the cost would be totally different for a variety of reasons.

I was very hands on and did as much work as I could myself. I did all the bobcat work, pre-grade, grade for decking, trench filling, solar, some plumbing, some electrical, all the landscaping, etc.. These things that I did myself saved me ALOT. Now we could have easily stayed at 70k but we put some big ticket items in like a fastlane machine (5k), gunite retaining walls w/stacked stone instead of block walls (7k), doubled our stamped concrete patio (extra 6k), cave, slide, 4in. plumbing runs are really expensive.... you get the idea.

So price is completely relative to the pool you build which largely depends on what work you can do yourself, equipment & plumbing choices, size,and anything you upgrade. I can tell you that I finished this pool 50k-70k cheaper than any bid I got from a pool builder and I have more upgrades and a nicer pool then any of those bids they gave me. Sorry that is so general but I hope that helps.
peytonroad
14 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
So very nice!! Imagine seeing that out your window every day, who needs to swim???
arielitas_mom
14 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
That is - without a doubt - one of the *nicest* pools I've seen in a very long time. I usually don't go for the naturalistic pools with grottos, rock work, etc. as they often tend to be a bit Fred Flintsone-ish, if you know what I mean. Yours, however, is one of the most elegant and aesthetically pleasing pools I have *ever* seen, and the way you took advantage of your slope and fit it into the setting is brilliant. Well done! Did you have an landscape architect or designer or are you as creatively gifted as you are good with a bobcat?!?
Niki Friedman
14 years ago
last modified: 9 years ago
Congratulations on your masterpiece! This pool is just gorgeous.

Northern CA owner/build- 98.5% done with some pictures

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sgregor

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Northern CA owner/build- 98.5% done with some pictures

Comments (8)

sgregor

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