Building a Swimming Pool (Step 1) – Breaking Ground

It’s been a long time coming, but we finally broke ground on our pool this week!

Building a pool is a big deal. It’s not an easy decision to make if you’re like me. I had so many questions, so many ideas, and so many thoughts about this whole process. How was all this going to come together? Will I be happy with the end result? Will I be happy with the process? Will the build be stressful? So many questions!

Did We Make the Right Decision to Build a Pool in Our Yard?

I have trust in our decision. Trust in the fact that we made the right decision to add a pool to our yard and trust in my design choice. Trust in our desire to hang out with family and friends in a magnificent outdoor space that we will enjoy for years to come. Trust that the kids will actually use the space and enjoy it with their friends. The vision and dream is real but what about the reality of the process?

Building a pool is a big investment, and depending on where you live, it may add or detract value from your home. I’m not saying that is the deciding factor, but it is something to consider when making a decision to add a pool to your home.

Even with all these considerations, we took a leap of faith and made the decision to add a swimming pool to our backyard! As I discussed in Our Backyard Project (Phase 2) Planning to Build a Pool and Pool House, the orientation of the pool was a huge decision for us. I fully believe we made the right decision in placing the pool perpendicular to our home. We are lucky enough to have the choice to go either way, as our yard is very large.

We signed the pool contract in December 2019. The Frustrations of Well and Septic Living – Relocating the Force Main Line held the project up a bit as we were dealing with relocating septic pipes in our yard.

Problems You May Encounter When Building a Pool

The pool part of the project started this week, and so far….well…a couple hiccups.

The framing of the pool is built in the location we designated. We want a direct view out our kitchen doors and windows, and the design accounts for that very specific location.

Large pieces of equipment are brought into our yard and the digging begins. I watch carefully as the excavator gets close to our patio but the crew is very careful and does not touch the existing stone BUT they did hit buried wires and pipes 😳. Hello Miss Utility what gives?

As it turns out, these electrical wires run from the outdoor kitchen through the excavation site. Luckily, my future plans include ripping out the existing kitchen…so not a huge deal….right? 😬 It’s cool no reason to panic….yet, it’s not even 9am.

As you can imagine, digging so deep into the ground will produce a ton of dirt, all of which we will need later on in the project.

We also hit rock! We knew there was a decent to very decent chance of hitting rock in our yard…based on the experiences of others in our neighborhood.

And the size these boulders is impressive!

And there are several of them! Apparently most of them are made of quartz.

But there was one very stubborn boulder that would not budge or break from any angle.

What to do? After trying to remove this rock for quite some time…the dreaded knock on the door.

The conversation you don’t want to have on day two of your project. Stay tuned…

Denise

XO

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