It is going to be gorgeous! Keep the pictures coming!!

I love the pictures of the pool and the kids. Your daughter has the same haircut as mine and I did a double take since they are both beautiful. Enjoy the process. Ours is being Pebble Sheened as I type.

Thanks for the compliments...on the pool AND my daughter! The inspector came to day to check the progress. Hopefully everything will pass so we can get some shotcrete soon. Anyone have any suggestions on upgrading to the exposed aggregate for our deck? Are there different colors to choose or is it all pretty much the same? Something tells me that having all of that decking as broomed concrete might look a bit too sparse. Maybe aggregate is the way to go. Any advice?

I upgraded to aggregate at the last minute and I love it. There are different colors, but I wasn't given any choices (which was probably a good thing!) I think you should go for it, esp. if you are getting a pebble finish pool

Well, we are not going to upgrade to the aggregate after all. The mason measured and told us we have 580 square feet more decking than was on our contract. In other words, we have to shell out $2000 that we were hoping wouldn't happen. Not to mention the cost to put in the retaining wall that we never anticpated. Thas $10,000. Plus the additional $2750 worth of fence that the builder mis-measured on the contract. Total craziness! We are tapped out. I'm almost glad the pool will not be done before Autumn b/c we couldn't afford to buy the patio furniture! Anyway, here are the latest photos...

Sounds like a bit of bait and switch with your pool build. How is it that they conveniently mismeasured $10,000 worth of important structures? Is there no recourse you can take for this sort of BS?? I am ANGRY for you! What would prevent any PB from underbidding by $10,000 and then pulling this on you in mid-project!?!?

Maybe someone with more experience can jump in here with some suggestions on a recourse.

Your pool is looking great so far though! That should be consolation.

Katherine

The pool is looking great so far, but it sounds like something is not right with the cost overruns. Let's go over it item by item:

"The mason measured and told us we have 580 square feet more decking than was on our contract."

Did the PB create a drawing for you that showed the decking? If so, you can hold them to the price they gave you originally. 580 SF is a HUGE error and is not excusable unless you changed your mind and decided to make the deck area bigger after the original contract was signed. If they did not create a drawing and just gave you an allowance for a certain SF of decking and you laid it out yourself and made it larger, then they are within their rights asking for more money for the difference.

"Well, we are not going to upgrade to the aggregate after all."

Go ahead and price exposed aggregate, it's pretty cheap and looks a lot better than broomed concrete. You might be surprised at how little it adds to the cost (not sure about this PB though).

"Not to mention the cost to put in the retaining wall that we never anticpated. Thas $10,000."

Who is telling you that you need it now? The PB? If so, did they not tell you this during the contract phase? If they didn't, I would demand a meeting with the PB owner and tell them you contracted with them to do a fully engineered pool. If a retaining system is required because of the pool, it was incumbent upon them to tell you up front.

"Plus the additional $2750 worth of fence that the builder mis-measured on the contract."

This is another item I would complain loudly about to the PB owner. It's inexcusable that they are making mistakes like this if you made your desires clear in the contract phase. They need to eat a large portion of these costs if it is indeed due to their errors.

When the PB gave us our initial quote, he mentioned that his fence and decking measurements were just estimates, based on the fact that we might change our minds as we got further into the build. He suggested 1000' of decking once we explained what we wanted so when the mason came out and measured what we laid out, it was substantially more than anyone estimated. I guess we could have decreased it to get within the 1000' but we were afraid of not having enough.
Regarding the fence, I don't know what to say. It was supposed to enclose only the pool and decking but with the increase in decking, the length of the fence got larger. It ended up saving us a few feet by deciding to just fence in the whole yard and use the house as a wall.
Finally, that darn retaining wall. The PB was very clear from day one that we would need a wall and that it would be our responsibility to find someone to build it. They gave us fair warning before they dug.
We were just ill-informed about the price of a wall. We were thinking $5000+ and it was not a realistic amount.
I'd love to blame the PB but we knew going in that things could increase. We had some $ set aside for these incidentals...we just had no idea how expensive things like this are. We have no regrets though. A lot of sticker shock, but no regrets...yet. Thanks for your concern!
P.S. The $10K wall is being built tomorrow so I will post pix of progress tomorrow night.

In that case it sounds like the PB was not being unreasonable. Are you sure about the decking size though? 1000 s.f. is a lot of decking, and to go over that by 580 s.f. would mean you have 1580 s.f. of decking?? That's a WHOLE LOTTA decking!

How much decking do you have in feet around different parts of the pool? It looks very narrow around the back side, and then large on the side towards the house and the deep end? I am trying to finalize my ideas for decking around my own pool. It will not be nearly as large, of course, since my pool is about 1/2 the size of yours!!! But, I am curious as to how you came up with the size of the decking.

"I am curious as to how you came up with the size of the decking."

Apologies if I'm hijacking the original thread.... I highly suggest creating a master plan of your back yard to make sure you accommodate not only your present needs/ desires, but also your future needs as well. Start by making a wish list of all the things you want for your backyard area. It might include any or all of the following- pool, covered patio, sunning patio, dining area, play area, lawn, lanscaping, storage building, fire pit, etc. etc. Then either create or hire someone to create a scale drawing of your yard. Get some tracing paper and start laying out the above items on your drawing (to scale) to see how they fit. Be sure to include furniture. You may need to make areas bigger or smaller or even eliminate some things in favor of others depending on your yard limitations. The key is to get everything you want in your master plan before anything is built. There's nothing worse than deciding to add something down the road only to discover that your pool should have been shifted a few feet in some direction to make it work! Here's the master plan we did for our project, the garage/ workshop is a future project as is the koi pond but we allocated the space for them when we did the rest of the work:

Here's a pic of it (I'm in the process of rebuilding the old patio cover with some carved columns & beams; new roof & skylights):

Our PB gave us a drawing and it showed the lounge chairs and conversation area to scale so we had a pretty good idea of how much space would be needed.

I need to correct myself on my previous post regarding the overage of decking. We did go over by 598 sq feet however, I didn't realize that a big portion of that was for a slab we are having put down for a hot tub. Duh! I thought that was a separate quote but the mason lumped it all together. Our true pool deck overage was 225 ft. Much more reasonable.

Also, we love the look of cantilever so we are going with that as opposed to coping but we didn't think about the fact that it adds one foot of concrete all the way around the pool. Now instead of having 3 feet of decking on the back side, we will have 4 feet.

Just make sure to ask lots of questions...don't assume anything! Stuff can really add up. Trust me!

Here's the 70' retaining wall. It's not quite finished but we are happy with the results so far.

I think it looks great, and no wonder it's about $10k. That's some wall. It will provide a great frame for the pool, though....

ima chihuahua,

From the look of your pictures,it seems as if the PB may have plumbed your main drain line the the second skimmer port.It's better if the main drain line is plumbed separately all of the way back to the equipment.

You stated:
>>Also, we love the look of cantilever so we are going with that as opposed to coping but we didn't think about the fact that it adds one foot of concrete all the way around the pool. Now instead of having 3 feet of decking on the back side, we will have 4 feet.You shouldn't get an upcharge for switching from brick or stone coping to cantilever concrete.The PB has roughly equal costs for either of these choices.Think about adding some concrete tint to the cantilever mix and maybe a rock salt finish.

If I had to guess what PB,I would say A&S.

I don't know a whole lot about pool plumbing but from what I understand, there is a diverter installed so that all of the suction can be diverted to the skimmer when the vacuum is attached. This diveter closes the line to the main drain, so that all of the suction from the pump is now at the skimmer...which is a good thing. I have heard opinions on both types of skimmer plumbing and I am confident that everything is going to operate just fine with my current set up.

you're retaining wall is gorgeous!

I hope you saved some money for a lot of screening trees between you and those houses right next to you....

Thank you very much. It is nice to hear something positive in this nightmare of a build. We are having a fence put in next week but as far as privacy goes...the neighbors on our left are close to 100 years old and probably couldn't see us anyway. The neighbors on our right are a group from the Salvation Army and they are physically and mentally challenged senior citizens so needless to say, they don't get out much. I am being totally serious by the way.

The house in the back is our very dear friend and her kiddies so we are totally fine with them watching us have fun. It might encourage them to come over and join us! We live far from our family and friends so we don't get many visitors. We are hoping they will start coming over now that we have the pool. I know, I know...be careful what you wish for!

Finally filling the pool. It is a chilly day here so it is bitter sweet seeing this beautiful pool water and shopping for pumpkins at the same time. At least we will be ready to go next spring!

Look at all the blue taking over that "sea of white" from last week. It will be beautiful. What is the bottom picturing....where are those inset tiles? I like the color. Is that not the plain plaster you were saying you were getting?

Gorgeous water color!! What color is your plaster? I love it! We have the exact same tile you have. It really looks nice!

A & S uses a plaster called Ansylbrite. We wanted a more lagoon-like color so they recommended the gray granite. We never got to see it prior to it being applied so we were crossing our fingers that the pool salesman knew what he was doing. I am really happy so far. I guess it will go through some changes as it cures but for now I am so excited.

I have another post about the amount of decking that my husband is freaking out over. Now that we are at the filling stage, he is so relieved. He and I agree that it is all coming together well.

Coniferfreak, we love your pool layout and coloring. It is so similar to our taste. I love your grilling area too. Nice touch. Who did your build?

ima_chihuahua - beautiful pool! Really nice material combination. What is the name and maker of your waterline tile?