Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Pool Removal Eve...

I'm taking a break from editing a couple of papers for Mike and writing a friend...

Mike's first paper was interesting; he'd gone to hear Ann Fessler, author of a book I want to read, The Girls who went Away – The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade.” and he had to review the lecture and accompanying exhibit.

Meanwhile, the last of the water in the pool is being pumped into the alley. The pool (like my house) is almost 30 years old. It was a nice, big (30,000 gallons), deep gunite pool, however, a couple of light years ago my then neighbor, Floyd (who was a GREAT neighbor, and it didn't hurt that he was handsome too) planted two live oak seedlings near my fence, and those trees are now...hmmm, I dunno, maybe 60' high? And their roots have done a number to the deck (and probably the plumbing), to say nothing of the bags and bags and bags of leaves and acorns that I've had to clean out each year...and yet, in spite of the mess, I love those trees...

And this year, the pool badly needed replastering, so I started looking into the cost of renovating it, only to discover how prohibitively expensive a proposition that was, at which time, it occurred to me...I'd like a firepit back there! And so I decided to have the pool removed. The usual thing down here is to jackhammer the pool into oblivion and then cover up the mess, but that's not my style (plus you can end up with a sinkhole, or so I've read), so I'm having the pool completely removed.

I did check out was whether I could convert it into an underground cistern (the answer is no). Sooooooooo...eventually, there'll be a firepit back there...first, though, I badly need a new fence. I think the neighbors are going to have a party when I do that...and the fence guy is showing up tomorrow, too, to measure so he can give me an estimate...

4 comments:

Lisa :-] said...

One of the houses we lived in had once had a pool... By the time we bought the place, the pool had been filled in and covered with a huge concrete slab. We called it "the dance floor." Turned out to be a great place to grow vegetables in containers...

emmapeelDallas said...

Exactly! I'd love to have the yard landscaped, but dunno what the budget will allow, but I do know that I want to be able to have some sort of firepit back there...

dreaminglily said...

Oh I wish you could see a guy that does firepits for our store! They are GORGEOUS. Expensive but they won't rust, he's an independent guy that works out of his garage. He started making them because his FIL's firepit had to be replaced every year because of rust. So his don't rust. Just wish you could see them, he's really awesome.

Anyway, hope everything goes smooth and doesn't cost you a fortune. I know how quick that stuff can add up.

~Lily

Anonymous said...

Emma, if you will be planting trees or landscaping the filled pool, make sure to fill up the top part with top soil. Since there's a cost involved some contractors won't do this by default.

Good luck.