The Pool that Almost Wasn't

Last September, when we moved into this house, one of the things that we were most pleased about was the pool. We have always had above ground pools, but now we had an in ground pool. As a child growing up in my parents' house we had an in ground pool. Some of my most treasured memories involve that pool and time spent lounging around it, and I was hoping that we would build our own family memories in ours.

The pool was covered when we moved in. Looking back now that was a blessing. In truth, the whole backyard was covered. Overgrown, weedy, depressing. It was almost as if the previous inhabitants had not even known that there was a backyard. Oh, it was a mess! (More on that in another post.) This is what we found when we uncovered it.

Umm, Ew? Trust me when I tell you that landfill smells more pleasant than that water did. Landfills, at least, attract seagulls. All this attracts are mosquitoes.

The reveal of this pool presented us with quite a conundrum. In addition to being a toxic stew, it is a wood wall pool, with potential wood rot. I don't like wood rot, nor do I like toxicness. (I do like making up my own words, though.)


We had one pool company look at it and a man told us that the wood wall would cave in when they took the old liner down. Also, to put up some new walls would cost us a small fortune. That man also said a very bad word. We decided to not use him.

We had another man tell us that this pool could not be fixed, but he could put in a new concrete pool for the low, low price of $30,000. Thanks, but no thanks. We live on a budget and actually do like to eat and pay our mortgage.

Then we found Dan. Dan the pool man and his merry band of pool helpers. Dan not only gave us the best price, but he never once told me that my walls would fall down or mentioned rot or said bad words. He just said, "It will be alright."


And it was. The walls did not cave in, there was no rot and we did not break the bank.

After the new liner was put in we had the task of filling the pool. We were so happy just looking at a clean, cootie free liner that we actually just stood there and watched the pool fill. Can you stand the excitement?

Ah-aha! Behold! Now, instead of dumping bleach into the pool to annihilate the mosquito larvae and begging our neighbors' forgiveness for the eye sore that is our backyard, we frolic and swim and whistle Yankee-Doodle Dandee.

Joe invites everyone over for a pool party. So when can you be here?