Month: July 2019

The lawn is done in the backyard!  The side of the house where the access road was is still in the process of receiving its lawn.

Greener pastures ahead!  Do you think it’ll stay this nice? 🙂

Access road remnants & beginning of lawn that leads into backyard

Close-up of access road remnants & beginning of lawn

Sod application in progress

Back left corner from above

View thru top of fence in front right corner

Back right side of lawn

Shot of yard from above front right fence

Left side of yard from above

Left corner of yard to beginning of pool – from above

Left side of yard from above

Pool & area from edge of patio to around 1/2 way of pool from above

Ariel shot of pool deck, most of pool & lawn in back of pool

Pool & surrounding lawn from above

Today, several flags were put in the yard.  Irrigation will be put in prior to the lawn & although I’m not sure what the two different flag colors signify, I’m sure it has something to do with the irrigation.

Many of the flags are white & blend in with the fence.

Gate to pool & A/C equipment

Towards the right side of the pool

Right center of yard

Overview from deck to equipment

Left side of yard towards center

Center of back portion of fence

Left center of yard

Fence along the left side of yard

Work continues on the fence.  Much to my surprise, most of the fence was finished today!

Pool deck & pool. Railing partially installed

In back of pool

Pool deck & left of yard

Left part of backyard

Work continues on the fence

Right side of the pool from above

Beginning of pool deck towards pool from above

Pool deck

Fence along left portion of backyard (furthest from pool)

Gate entering backyard

Left portion of backyard

Stones under fence where it doesn’t make sense to put grass

Pool

Gate exiting backyard

Left of the pool deck from above

The fence was started today.  These are pictures taken on the afternoon of July 8, 2019.

Is there finally light at the end of the tunnel?

5 o’clock shadow

Approaching yard from right side

Fence in back of swim-out

Fence in back of swim-out

Fence on right side going away from wall

Fence with mini-fence around equipment being started

Starting to go around right side of wall

Fence on right side – deep end of pool

At the end of June, the pool was prepped for plastering & new tiles attached.

On July 1, 2019, the plastering was complete & the pool filled with water.

As part of the curing of the plaster, the pool needs to be brushed daily (or 2x/day) for the next 2 weeks.  Even though the pool appears to be very clean, there presently isn’t any chlorine in it.

We were hoping that the pool would have been ready for the Fourth of July – alas, the Fourth has come & gone.  With any luck, it will be ready soon.

Attached are pictures showing the whole yard & the pool from July 4.

Pool being tiled

Completed tile

Completed tile

Completed tile around skimmer

Access road to backyard

Entering backyard

Backyard

Backyard

Backyard

Back of wall looking away from pool

Corner of wall in back of pool

Back of wall

Pool

Pool

Deck & pool

Pool & deck from above

Pool & deck from above

So we decided to go ahead with the pool & deck/patio renovation.  This began around the beginning of May 2019.

The process draining the pool, removing the existing coping & deck/patio, and plastering the pool.  We also needed to have the surface of the pool water blasted because the pool is Gunite & was painted several years ago.

Unfortunately, the company that did the water blasting didn’t cover the heads of the caretaker system & destroyed them.  And the pool then failed a pressure test (the pipes were all original).  So we had the caretakers removed & put in a more conventional system.

Old pipes for caretaker system

New drain for area outside of pool & gutters

Deck & coping removed

New pipes & motor for return system (filter the same)

Old pipes for caretaker system

Caretakers patched

new deck/patio being placed

Caretakers patched. New coping

Deck & coping removed

Left side of the pool without decking or coking

Around the beginning of 2019, the wall construction was finished.  The lawn & fence were scheduled to go up in the Spring.

We were planning on redoing our patio & our pool in a few years – after talking with the contractors, because all the equipment was already there, the lawn torn up, access road, and lack of fence, it made sense to look into redoing our pool patio/deck, coping & the pool itself.

View of the yard from the back corner to the other back corner. Essentially all gained land

Back corner of the pool deck that had been repaired around a decade earlier after collapsing because of erosion

Soil at the back of the wall

Repaired section of pool patio/deck that had collapsed around a decade earlier because of the erosion

View of the finished wall from the street (zoomed-in)

Pool deck

Yard in back of the pool. The fence had previously been a few feet from the back of the patio/deck

The wall construction continued throughout November, 2018 & officially ended around the first of the year.

The wall is a two-tiered wall.

Wall from the bottom

Wall from the bottom

View of the wall from the street (zoomed-in)

Corner of the wall from above

Wall from the bottom

Wall from the bottom

View of the wall from the street (zoomed-in)

View of the finished wall from the street (zoomed-in)

See the steepness

View of the wall from the street (zoomed-in)

Corner of the wall from above

In November 2018, the wall construction began.  Attached are some images hi-lighting the construction.  A benefit of doing this project is we are gaining several feet to our usable yard.

Base of where wall will go

View from where tree once was

Old fill in back of fence dug up

Old fill removed & wall starting to be erected

Gravel laid inside of where base of new wall will be built

Tarp protecting old fill during excavation

Wall beginning to take shape

Old fill in back of fence dug up

Wall beginning to be built

Old fill being removed.

Corner

For years, we have been putting off the inevitable – needing to address a serious erosion problem in our backyard.

It finally got to the point where if something wasn’t done, not only would we continue to have a serious erosion problem, we would also be in danger of losing our pool, as it was getting dangerously close to the edge.

The existing retaining wall (just some railroad ties) had failed. Please see the gallery below to show images taken in late Winter 2018 (once Spring hit, the whole area in back of the fence was dangerous to go in back of, because of thorns)

Back left corner. Held up via boulders leaning on a tree

Bottom of failing wall

Bottom of failing wall