Looks great! Great call on light placement - ours are also placed on the wall closest to our house and look fantastic at night without the 'glare' in your face. You'll have fun playing with the lights once they are wired in - especially considering you won't be swimming for a few more months.

To your earlier question about things that I would do differently, at least from what I know right now, I would not change a thing. This TFP website was an amazing resource and REALLY helped me along the way. There were a few tips that I picked up that I am very happy that I implemented including:
* The umbrella holders set in the concrete deck (I made them myself very easily and inexpensively with PVC from Lowes)
* The slide line -- we weren't sure about putting a slide in, but now I am very glad we did. The kids are excited about it - I'll be picking up a SR Smith 'Typhoon' slide when the pool opens
* The Pentair EasyTouch system with ScreenLogic2 -- it is REALLY nice to be able to have control of the pool from my iPhone/Pad/Laptop and it works great.
* Burying a lot of conduit under the concrete for electric/speaker/etc runs in the future.

If you have any questions, please let me know -- having just gone through most of the same things you are going through now, a lot of this info is fresh in my brain. Good luck and I'll look forward to more pics.

Well it's finally dried out enough for some more work on the pool. The last two days have been plumbing, installing the LED lights, and setting up the equipment pad. Things are finally coming together!

jhav: I will be making a few of those umbrella holders.....what a brilliant idea!


A few shots of the plumbing.












We fenced in an area around our well pressure tank and air conditioner unit a while ago to keep our dogs and any little kids that may be visiting away from the equipment. I left plenty of room to put out pool filtration equipment in there as well. It'll all be out of sight and safely protected from little fingers and cold noses.
This picture was taken with the fence panel off and prior to complete set up. It's now running....albeit on a rigged up setting from a garage outlet.

I had hired an electrician to come and and get it all wired......but apparently he thought he was just coming to give an estimate for the work and won't have the time to hook it up until the Tuesday after Christmas. Ah well.....lesson learned. At least the pool builders were here to explain where all the equipment was and what they required.



The pool builders also ran the copper wire which will be attached to the decking for bonding. It will be grounded on an existing rod I have for my well in the equipment area. They also ran pvc from the flush on the sand filter and used the ditch to run it to an area about 20 feet beyond my pool. This prevents any hosing being required when I want to backwash the sand filter. The pvc pipe will terminate about 2 inches above the ground....so I'll either have to be careful when mowing......or will more likely build a brick enclosure around it.
This ditch is 3 feet deep which is plenty deep enough for my area of the country.





After we ran the pump overnight and established that there were no leaks the backfill was completed. They were also able to get the coping forms installed all the way around the perimeter. Of course, the cement company is closed until Tuesday for the holiday....so the coping pour will be done then.

That pvc piping you see at the far end of the pool on the left side is the "water-feature" plumbing. We had them run that now.....but we probably won't complete the water feature until this spring. We are still undecided about what we'd like.....but I think we will stay away from the ole rock waterfall as it seems to be overdone around my area.




Just by running the pump overnight...the water has changed from "river mud" to clear. Although there is still plenty of dirt on the bottom. We'll be patient and will get it all cleaned up when the project is complete.



So, pouring the coping this Tuesday. Electrician is supposed to wire us up on Tuesday. Weds and Thurs will be all about preparing for the decking pour. We'll be utilizing a cement pumper as I am uncomfortable with such heavy equipment on my driveway. The pumper is scheduled for the following Tuesday. So we're looking for completion in the first week of 2012.....I hope.

None are more ready to have our domain back than the actual owners of the backyard. You can see here that they are not pleased that we have been delayed. That's a dirty look they are both giving me.

Love the Dogs! I get that same look from our 2 dogs! Good luck with your build. Looking very nice!

Nice progress. Love the dogs.

Make sure to bury some conduits for adding future wiring or other features. That's about the only regret I have about my pool build.

That's on my list right now.

It's supposed to be in the 60's this week here in OKC, you should take a quick dip

I did run extra conduit. I'll be putting in some kind of music system next year. It may be 60 here in OKC...but that well water in the pool is hovering just above freezing still! A bit too cold for my blood!

The electrician called this morning and said he'd be out this afternoon to get all the electrical work done. It's past 5pm now....so I'd say that we are getting into evening hours. I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess he won't, in fact, be coming today. Hopefully tomorrow. If not I'll just find another to do the job.

Anyway. The PB was out with his awesome crew today. Coping was the scheduled event. They worked on it pretty much all day...and man....it looks great. Much better than I suspected it would. These pictures don't do the color or the stamping much justice. it looks great in person.....and I guess the color will be even better after they seal it next week.













Tomorrow they will be prepping for the decking. I plan on quite a bit of it and I'm sure I'll go way over the 500 additional square feet we bargained into the price. It's a good thing I read a build here that suggested getting a set price per square foot...just in case the plans change...and extra decking is wanted. Well, the plans DID change....and we want quite a bit more decking than we thought we would during the planning stages. We bargained a good price for the concrete during the contract phase...and man am I glad we did.

Finally getting around to updating. Our PB poured our deck on 30 Dec. We went over our estimate by about 300 square feet. Really glad I negotiated a good price in the contract phase for per square foot. I believe we got just the right amount of decking for us.
Our electrician is supposed to be out today to finish the hookups. I'd really like to get this thing taken care of and wrapped up this week. We won't be winterizing this year and we won't be putting a safety cover on until fall of this year....so it's really important to keep our pump running during the cold weather we have forecasted.
The decking was stamped and contrasts nicely with the coping we selected. Tomorrow our PB will be out to seal it all up and give me some hands on training on how to use the equipment.

Our pool project is pretty much complete! Time for me to move on and start hanging around the Pool School forums. I'm really happy that I found this resource.....it has been very helpful. Really looking forward to the summer! Still trying to decide what to do for a water feature....we had the plumbing done for that.....but want something unique. Ah well.....we have all winter to figure it out.












Thanks for the great work guys! I can highly recommend the guys from Sea Breeze Pools in Oklahoma City. These guys do great work!

Good luck keeping the dogs from being in the pool every time they are let out. They look like Labs. If so they are born with webbed paws and love water, even cold water.

Finding a cold wet dog begging to come in at your back door is a familiar site....

We just had the company that put your pool in give us a quote. Are you still satisfied with the end result? We are having a house built and would like to put the pool in at the same time.