Lap Pool

The decision to have a house in Temecula did not sit well with the younger members of the family especially my teenage son. I do not blame him as it is far from his friends. It must be unsettling for him to imagine that when he goes away to college he would come "home" to a new location. My daughter feels it too but because she has been at college the past almost 3 years, the impact is "less." Her friends being older can and do come out to her. I am hoping that now that my son is driving, he will be less upset about it.

We looked at the big picture and decided we would put in a pool to entice our almost adult children to come visit us when they have left home. It would be a place for their friends to hang out as well. Building the pool was the first landscape project we did as it involved huge machinery, lots of digging, moving of earth, laying of pipes and electrical. We did not want any planting to be damaged in the construction that invariably happens.


In August 2011 our beautiful 20 feet lap pool with spa was completed. We updated the patio with a polycarbonate roofing that has 20% filter so that light still comes through but it helps shade the patio area. We extended the patio to uncovered area for entertainment and lounging. We had initially planned a outdoor kitchen but found the wind to be too strong for the location we selected. Outdoor kitchen is now planned as stage 2 when we have lived there for awhile and know where to site it.

We choose to site the pool on the back of the property which has an unobstructed view of the neigbouring vineyards. Prior to work beginning on the pool, we cut off the water supply to the back lawn thereby killing the the grass. In fact we cut off water supply to all lawn areas. Our plan is to replace the lawn with water wise landscaping.

05/11/20

After grading the site, the pool contractor dug out a hole in the ground that would be our 20 foot lap pool. The redwood lattice patio roofing casting the shadow on patio floor in this picture would be replaced polycarbonate roofing to provide a weather proof cover.

05/27/11

The next stage was setting rebars across the bottom and walls of the pool.

06/02/11

 The spa is being framed out by rebars  at the left corner of the pool. 

Although our property was already fully fenced, we were still required to erect `pool safe' fencing. We did not want a fence directly around the pool, obstructing the view. At the same time, the cost of installing `pool safe' fencing around 4 acres of land was prohibitive. After some deliberation, we settled on fencing lower down the slope, outside the view of the pool, but still enclosing the pool area. We decided that this inner fence area would be our orchard and protected from critters.

 Shotcrete - concrete pumped through hose at high pressure adhere to the rebars  and form the pool bottom an walls. Below you can see the spa and steps going into the pool.

We choose to textured and acid wash color concrete for the pool decking and patio lounge and entertainment area.

The pool surface cures and awaits the Pebble Tec pool finish application. Meanwhile work on the walled garden/courtyard begins.

Pebbletec a proprietry pool surfacing material is applied. After curing, the pool is washed to reveal the pebbles in the mixture. We chose Caribbean Blue.

08/05/11

Finally the pool is filled. It took almost a whole day with 5 hoses running to fill the pool. Finally at 2 am my husband woke up to turn off the water. A line of blue tiles mark the swimming lane of the pool. We also provided "holes" at both side of the pool to insert poles for the volley ball net. Beautiful!

08/08/11

 Let the swimming begin!

8/10/11