No offense to Hill Billies! We are doing this pool build completely DIY, so get ready for losts of beer, a few mistakes and tons of questions. You supply the answers and I'll supply the pictures. Enjoy!

I'm using photo bucket so I'm hoping the links work.

Before!
http://i604.photobucket.com/albums/tt12 ... dig017.jpg


Better than a video game!

http://i604.photobucket.com/albums/tt12 ... dig022.jpg

I think he's doing a pretty good job!
http://i604.photobucket.com/albums/tt12 ... dig019.jpg

Awesome! Do keep us posted on the progress, the missteps, and the successes.

Hillbillies DON'T use power tools!

I LOVE that you are just starting to dig and your kids are in swimsuits already

Keep us posted on your pool progress. Love seeing the kids "digging" in already.

Well, we finally experienced our first misstep. When the excavator drove over the septic tank, the entire top collapsed. I flipped out, but then realized if it was already weak, it was best that it happened now instead of when a kid was running across it or when I was mowing over it. Plus, we already had the excavator here so we could repair it right away. One a side note, my seven year old was transfixed over the fact that we had a 'secret cave' in our very own back yard. So, digging stopped for a while while that was fixed. Just one more reason why we were glad we got the permit after all. We feel we made a lot of progress today and we're so glad to be past this hurdle. It was a learning day for everyone.

This is a picture of the septic take with the top gone. This is the moment of the near bludgeoning of my husband followed by my own heart attack. The floaties are just the wood chips that fell in from the playground that was there before. I promise.
http://i604.photobucket.com/albums/tt12 ... septic.jpg

The whole hole.
http://i604.photobucket.com/albums/tt12 ... hehole.jpg

The effect of digging a pool...an awesome sledding hill. Two seasons of fun for the price of one!
http://i604.photobucket.com/albums/tt12 ... edhill.jpg

Many thanks to TFP for all the help and encouragement so far!

Looks like you're well on your way to a new oasis. Nice 2 for 1 with the sledding hill!

Hey fellow Hoosier. Just starting to dig myself. Just borrowed a neighbors backhoe and went at it.
Will post my pictures soon. Not to pretty to start, but I will get there. Thanks for the pics.

hubcap,
Sounds like we have a similar pool. Wish we had it last week. What a miserable heat wave. We are doing full width steps as well and then ordering the liner after. How are you planning on building your steps?

Went with metal steps. Price was close to concrete and I can do it at my own pace. 18' steps takes a few hands to pour and rub out. My backhoe would not quite reach where I needed to finish deep end. I have to hire a guy out about 2 hours time for extendahoe to finish. Hurts my pride a little! Then I am ready to start setting walls.

Anyone who is reading this I have some advice. I just went to look at a used slide for my pool. The people stated they did not use their pool and was having landscapers to completely remove it. After buying the slide for $500, I then inquired about the rest of the pool equipment. Making a long story short, I purchased automatic cover, filter, pump, heater, diving board and base, hand rails, and salt system. All in working order and quality equipment. The landscaper was charging her to tear everything out. Needless to say I got it all for the price of the slide, she just wanted it gone. This is a situation that comes up often for people who no longer want there pools. Look around on craigslist you may get lucky like I did.

Now a true hillbilly would fill his pool with pond or lake water. Heh heh!

275wbymag,
that's been the joke around here..."now ya just need a good rain and the pool will be ready"! Oddly enough, we have a pond too. We put in a beach when we moved here but found it was too mucky to swim in. Put in an above ground the next weekend. Here we are five years later digging an in ground. I owe it all to TFP. You guys have given us the knowledge and the confidence we needed.

Hubcap,
I think that happened to us. We posted our old deck on craigslist and then got tons of calls about the filter sitting in the background that we hadn't even considered selling. Ended up getting a little cash out of that. Good news about all the stuff you scored! Autocovers cost an arm and a leg.

We are getting ready to put up the walls as soon as the hardware box gets here. It accidentally got left out and we didn't get it with the big pool shipment.

hit another wall...well actually missing a wall. There was a misunderstanding with the pool supplier and we got shorted an entire 20' wall. This is messing up the mojo for tomorrow. Sighhhhhh. Building a pool is like building a small house. So many things can go wrong.

PS, you have a lot of firewood!

we heat the whole house with it. The neighbor is a woodturner. We call it supply and demand...we demand that he supply his scraps.

wheres the corn mash still?

I will be next winter, at least until I run out. I've been clearing my property and I've gotten about a cord piled up so far this summer. Dropping and bucking trees in 100-110 degree weather isn't fun, but what else am I going to do between jobs. Got laid off a few weeks ago, start a new job Monday, so been giving my saw a workout, not to mention what it's doing to me.

You have WAY more than a cord though!

EDIT: I went back and looked, from what I see I estimate about 5 cords of wood there.

So sad, we didn't get to vermiculite today. The day started and ended with rain. Got the coping in and discovered our dig was two inches off. The hard packed clay was a bear to work with. The walls proved to be more time consuming than we anticipated. So much leveling. Had to pack it up early because it down poured, plus we had to pick up all the beer cans. Tomorrow will be a new day.

Yeah, I was hoping that I could tease duraleigh into a sarcastic reply with that post. He fills his football field size pool with lakewater and then shocks it into submission. With a pool as big as his though, you kind of have to use a reservoir of sorts to fill it.

Please post more pics soon. Thanks for sharing your build, I can't seem to get enough of these.