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. :)