Friday, January 11, 2013

More Before and After on the Pool and Backyard: A Reminder That Mess Eventually Equals Progress

Before and After on the Pool



Before and After of the Guesthouse Outdoor Kitchen Area

This stainless-steel outdoor kitchen (made in America by the way--Torrance, Calif.) has been a godsend now that the kitchen in the main house is completely under construction. The side burner handles everything from soup to noodles. We even bake cookies on the BBQ.

Before and After of the new pool slide. We added a lot of trees on the South side to give us privacy. All we had originally was this five foot wooden fence. Just beyond these chairs is where the slide was ultimately placed.

You can see all of those trees here. They were five foot trees when we planted the row of them, but they shot right up in no time and create a wall of privacy that does need to be trimmed from time to time to ensure we get full sunlight on the pool and not too much shade.

Before and After of the backyard area. Notice all of that dirt to the right. That was what was dug out to create the hole for the new jacuzzi. Talk about a lot of work--and my husband (see pic) gets the credit for that back-breaking endeavor. Eventually, all of the dirt piled up on the right was used to create the mound for the new slide and waterfall area.

Woah. What a mess!


This is a view outside the front door of the guest house looking up toward the back of the house. The mess is gone and flagstone has taken its place. You can close the back gate and really feel like you're in another world. Wow--that really was a lot of flagstone—called Wolf's Creek—that went into this backyard.  

Another view of the pool in progress and this isn't even the worst of the earliest before photos. We really built up the rear of the backyard to create the giant cement slide and waterfall. Was it all worth it? The squeals of excitement heard in the next little video clip reminds me that it was. Everyone is enjoying the finished pool and slide! For our family, this was a many-year project (I hate to say how many years it actually took), but thankfully—it's now a dream come true. 

2 comments:

  1. I love your pool finish! It makes an interesting contrast with the water. In fact, it does make the water a lot bluer. And the plants, too, have their own contribution to this gorgeous setting. Did you install underwater lights? That would look great at night, when you want to do some night swimming. :D -->Cathy

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  2. Thanks, Cathy! We've learned some lessons about this finish the hard way though. We just had to reseal those stones. Hopefully, this will be the last time for awhile. And, yes, we installed one underwater light in the pool and one in the jacuzzi. There is a magical glow at night when just these lights are lit in the back. And, we are all night swimmers, so the lights are useful. My husband often swims at midnight.

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