Swamp - Exit Stage Left!

When we moved into the house, in addition to the marsh, we also gained a swamp in the backyard. for more than a year, the pool had slowly sunk into a dismal state similar to a black lagoon. We actually could not see the bottom and were curious if we might find dead bodies floating to the top one morning. In any case, the gunnite shell of the pool was in great condition but the pool needed new plaster since the walls were pitted with algae and so rough that swimming against them would cause your skin to bleed. (Not good!) I had originally thought that this was a DIY job, but with the possibility of pool float, I wanted to hire someone with insurance that knew what they were doing. This was one of those times where we needed to hire a pro. So we hired Brothers Plastering to plaster our pool for us.

POOL BEFORE!

 (Note the black water! Yuck!)

The whole process started with cleaning out of the pool. There was a little paranoia on my part, because we were so close to the marsh and the pool shell could actually float up out of the ground from the pressure of the water table if we did not relieve that quickly. As soon as the pool was drained, the pool guys drilled a hole in the bottom of the pool to relieve the pressure and up came the groundwater into the pool . This was a relief! I was also relieved that no dead bodies were found in the bottom of our pool!

Sorry CSI, not today!

Then they chipped out all the tile around the top edge and laid in new square tile I picked out. Large square tile is better (from what I was told) because it has less places for the water to creep in behind the mortar versus the original tile that was 2 inches long irregularly shaped with fancy shmancy jagged edges.

That all happened in a day. The weather forecast was rainy for the next two weeks, so they had to come back after St Patricks Day. Needing a good excuse to relax, we went to Savannah for some festivities and returned on Monday for the plastering to begin!

So on Tuesday, the plasterer came and they pumped in the plaster from a truck to the pool and started smoothing it out with trowels. Then they pumped in more and troweled that smooth. Repeat. Repeat. Then it started to harden and into the pool they went with sponges taped to their feet to work out all the bumps and make sure everything was nice and smooth!

 

 ....Then add 30,000 gallons of water over two days and Voila! You get a POOL!

As some of you may know, I work from home, so below was my view from my office. 

:)

So now that the pool is complete.

 We are going to tackle the yard and HVAC and revamp our pool cabana. 

We've started demo on the pool cabana already....Here (below) it is in its infancy...

The Wysteria came FREE OF CHARGE! Woohoo!

Next post will be all about the crap you find in a yard and shed 

that has been neglected for years. :)

That's what Brothers are For!

It became apparent that we had a huge drainage issue when we got a crawlspace full of water one day! So we called in the pros...My brother J.T. came to the rescue! Reidl's Construction came down for a week and we rented a excavator and boy was that efficient! He dug trenches to put pipe in leading from the gutters to the storm sewer drain. He also installed a drain to catch the rain running down the hill towards our house.

Off to the left you can see the project manager Landyn. He is making sure JT is doing everything right.

 J.T. also brought his trusty chainsaw and went to town on our back yard, trimming up a very nice view of the marsh that we had never seen before! The view is even more amazing now! It brought back memories of clearing the land in Ohio with my family. (I didn't say those memories were fond.) In the middle of the yard, you can see the huge pile of branches and bushes we tore out. :)

 Since we could not get the excavator into the backyard, Chuck and I hand dug our trenches back there. We ran into a concrete slab under some dirt and had to rent a concrete saw. I must say that Chuck was quite the pro at sawing the concrete. After we trenched far enough away from the foundation, we filled the trenches with 3 inches of rock, laid in the hard drainage pipe and covered with more rock. 

We also got gutters (not so exciting) to tie into our new drainage system. We got gutter guards too (Rhino Guards) that come with a clog free guarantee! When we had to remove a couple of the shutters to install the gutters, we found pink paint underneath! The house used to be pink! Charleston Gutter Company was so nice that they even hooked up my Rain Barrel for free! They were a great company to work with!

   

 Lastly, after all that digging, we decided to get rid of a couple other plants that we weren't too fond of. They are called cast iron plants. Well, a neighbor wanted as many as she could get her hands on, so she came over and we dug out many wheelbarrows full of that plant! Voila! You can see what the plant looks like in the picture above. Its the plant that the bricks under the rain barrel are smashing.

Well, that's all for now! Next time, We should have some pics on the pool renovation!