Everyone knows we have been working on the pool project for about a month and we finally wrapped it up Memorial Day weekend (well mostly).  Our budget was our entire stimulus check ($1200) - and we did our best to stick to it.  Actually we did a great job at sticking to it.  When it was all said and done, I think we hit it within $20 bucks.  The good way.

It was a lot of work, and with the heat of that weekend (99-100 degrees) it seemed even harder that it really was.  Since I had cleared that area of grass and such the week before and we had picked up the 35 bags of sand to go down before the pool was erected. The rest had been picked up during the week before (like all the pots & plants, pool and all that).

So lets get it started eh?

First step was taking those million bags of sand and getting them evenly distributed.  Shala manned the opening of the bags, and I took them (50 lbs. each) and played a nice little game I like to call OCD-ness.  I think Shala got the good end of the deal, since she didn’t have to walk around with those bags of sand… but hey, I’m the man - that is what I am supposed to do right?  Right.  Below you can find a pic of the sand laid out in nice lil piles… ok, PERFECT piles of sand placed exactly where they should have been placed. 

After laying out the sand… we pushed it around and got it all leveled out.  See below.

So now with the base of sand down so that we wouldn’t have any problems with grass growing up in the bottom of the pool or anything pokin’ through the bottom and causing leaks.  It is called preparation people!  Thinking ahead!  haha

With the thing level we spread out the pool and started putting together the pieces and such.  Originally we were going to go with one of those blow up ones (you know, you blow up the ring and then fill with water)… but they just looked so shady.  I was afraid we would put all this money into this and watch it all go to hell.  Not cool.

We decided to go with the aluminum frame pool, which was pretty easy to setup.  After laying out the liner, we probably had the frame built in an hour.  That may sound like a lot, but it really wasn’t that bad.  I mean considering we went from no pool, to empty pool in an hour… is quite an accomplishment. 

So after putting it up, we had to wait.  Yup… wait.  This filling up the pool thing took longer than anything else.  I guess you don’t really think about how long it would take… you just figure you would be immediately swimming.  Nope.  So come midnight we were about half way full and called it good for the night.  Or was it half empty?

The funny thing is all night I couldn’t sleep because I was thinking about filling up the pool, so at 6:00 AM I couldn’t take it anymore and got up and started the last hurrah in the filling up process.  By noon we had everything finished and ready for swimming.  However… we had other plans that couldn’t be avoided - so we had to skip out of the swimming until the next day.

With everything finally done… you can check out the final pics of everything in place.  Thank you Uncle Sam, you hooked it up fatty style.  Enjoy.

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Tags: Design, Gardening, Personal, Pictures by James
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Hello to all!  It’s been awhile since I have posted anything and I’ve really missed all of you.  Last week I was sick with some sort of something and am still not completely over it.  I’ve been slowly catching up on all of the blogs that I frequent and love that gardening season is now in full swing.

As you all know we have been working on a swimming pool area and are doing our best to make ourselves a little tropical oasis in the middle of this desert that we live in.  One of the plants that I had my heart set on was a Sago Palm.  The first one that I saw available to buy was HUGE and was a whopping $900.00.  Unfortunately we do not have that kind of money to spend on plants, so I was out to find a smaller one with a more reasonable price tag.  We did find a smaller one that was $249.00, still a little out of my price range.  I was sad, but bought some other cheaper plants to heal the pain and decided that we would continue looking elsewhere.

We visited our regular greenhouses and didn’t find one that was suitable and I have to admit I was probably more disappointed than I should have been.

Then on Monday which was officially my birthday my parents called and we decided to have burgers at our house.  Since it was my birthday I decided that James could go to the grocery store while I floated around in the pool.  He was very nice and went without any complaints.  When he returned home he was carrying this little beauty.

I never imaged that we would find what I wanted at the grocery store!  My hubby really came through for me and I’m so happy.  Poor little guy still needs to be repotted and that is first on my list for the weekend.  Not to rub it in or anything but I have just been to busy in the swimming pool after work to repot this baby.

On a similar note… we have decided for each special day (birthday’s, anniversaries, Fridays - haha) we will be purchasing some kind of plant to commerate it.  That should be cool to see 20 years from now when you can’t get in our jungle of a backyard any longer.  haha  HAPPY FRIDAY EVERYONE!

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Tags: Design, Gardening, Personal, Pictures by Shala
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As you know we picked up a chair from my Grandpa a few months ago and had plans to revitalize it for our pool area project (that we finished this past weekend).  It was in pretty bad shape with rust trying to take it out.  However with a bit of sanding… OK A LOT OF SANDING… it was coming around and ready for paint.

We went with a white paint, since it was already white to begin with - it just seemed right.  Then we did purchase a nice cushion for it on Friday and once we got it into place… we knew we had done the right thing by revitalizing it.

See the pics below of our “new” lounger before & after the revamp.

Before…

After…

Oh… and the pool area post is coming… don’t you worry.

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Tags: Design, Living Green, Pictures by James
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We picked up some yellow cannas this past weekend for the pool area and yesterday they had already started blooming.  They look great and give a burst of color to that area already.  We can’t even imagine what it will look like when everything is blooming 100%.  Enjoy this burst of goodness.

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Tags: Design, Gardening, Pictures by James
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So as you know, the pool project is almost a wrap, we are just about to put the pool up and get everything situated around it.  We have a big party planned for Sunday night (for Shala’s birthday) and we want to have it wrapped up by then - not really to swim at the party… but to have it finished. 

Shala has caught some kind of cold/bug/sickness thingy, at first we thought it was allergies, but now we are thinking it is more than that.  She hasn’t felt all that great since Sunday, so she has been out of commission since.  I know she wants to help, and it is killing her.  So just too keep things on track - I have been working a bit out there during the week this week in hopes to keep it on track so that when she feels better we can tag team it and get it done.

I say that because I am sure some of you have noticed Shala hasn’t been commenting, being active on Blotanical or blogging lately… and I just wanted to let everyone know she is in recovery mode.

Now - back to the pool project.  So we had put some heavy duty commercial grade round-up on some grass that needed to be erradicated (I know, I know… it isn’t very organic of us…), and it has finally done it’s job.  All the grass looked pretty much dead, but I got to thinking about it and I remembered the people we bought the house from said that they had laid down sod within the past year.  The stupid thing… I didn’t think about it until after we had sprayed it with the roundup.  If I would have thought about it, I would have just ripped it up and reused it (hindsight is indeed 20/20) throughout the yard.  Oh well… too late.

Yesterday afternoon, since the grass had went to grass heaven, I decided to take it up so we could get on with the pool project already.  It really went fast, since the sod was fairly new, and also that corner of the yard is NEVER watered really and the dogs had done their fair share to ruin it as well.  With a shovel in hand it ripped up fast and within 45 minutes or so it was all over.  A bit of cleanup and leveling with the rake and we had us a nice spot for a swimming pool. 

Now with that all up, today I hope to get out there and put down some landscaping fabric to keep anything from growing into the pool.  Then we will be looking for some sand to put down and after that… the pool will go up.  We are still under budget, with about 200 bucks left.  We have to buy a few tiki torches and then the sand, and I think we are done.  After we get the pool up we are going to look at the boardwalk plan and see if it makes sense.  If we do it, then that will have to come out of that money as well.  If we do the boardwalk part, it would be only on one side… so it will be cheaper.

I will snap a picture at lunch and upate this post with what it looks like at the moment… apologies for not having one already.  Everything is going great though - let’s hope Shala gets well soon so we can work on the rest of it together!

Got the pic at lunch… here ya go…

Well actually, this is the before pic below.

And this one below is after the back corner of grass was taken out and plants and all that crap… you get the idea.

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Tags: Design, Gardening, Personal by James
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