So after going on line, reading through this invaluable site and reviewing other OB pool builds (special recognition to Ben Choi @ HowIbuiltmyownpool.com) I decided to begin an exciting yet very daunting journey to build my own pool. With recession in full effect it seems a Pool nowadays is a luxury few can afford, yet in my mind now is the right time to take the plunge.

If you knew me you would say I was a bit obsessive. I have a penchant to want to learn everything I can about projects I want to tackle. For example I have read up on all facets of the pool construction process perhaps ad nauseum. However this allows one to build the requisite knowledge and of course confidence to take on what others would think is nuts or leave in the hands of experts. I am definitely not one who shrinks from a challenge and in many ways I feel I betray myself by not learning and appreciating the process.

Prices of labor and materials (especially equipment and inventory reductions, closeouts and liquidations) are certainly lower than two years ago. The pool building trade has really suffered in these parts and it is impressive to find out that craftsman and tradesman are working more and more with homeowners knowing full well that lowering th cost hurdle will bring more buyers in the market in these tight economies and give them work not coming from the GCs.

To get started I had several questions and challenges. What style, shape/form, depth, location should the pool be? Should I go humbly and conservative or go forward full gusto and go all out considering the expense, time and expected frustration. I knew going into this that the pool had to be good enough to make me say at the end of the day "it was worth it".

So the journey begins

Sounds exciting. Good luck. Post pictures of your progress.

To design my pool I went on line to look at the work of others. It is amazing the variance of people's tastes as well as the creative talent out there. In no way can I say I have great taste or sensibility of style. However having grown up as a kid with a house of engineers and architects I have certain amount of understanding what is compatible with certain architectural styles. While I could have gone with a pool with alot of rock features, crazy tropical with grottos and cascades and such, it did not fit with my property or the design of our main house which is Tuscan/Mediterranean. I consulted my brother who is a very talented and knowledgeable architect with a good eye. After much fighting over what I wanted and what suited the property he recommended a free form with some classical features but with some raised elevation and raised bond beams with ledger stone work. He did not have time to help me due to his busy job, so I decided to go online and see if there were tools available to help me. Well after a couple hours of googling and a trial use I found a piece of software (not cheap but worth every penny) called Pool Studio.

It took me about 4 days to learn the ins and outs which says alot about the skill of the programmers who design this product considering I have almost no CAD experience and limited artistic inclinations. It quickly dawned on me that this software would also save me years of headaches as it would allow me to visualize in 3d the design and more importantly clear everything with wifey. Imagine the number of post build debates this will prevent.

After several weeks with the wifey over my shoulder and the input of my aesthetically inclined brother we came up with our design. The only problem is that it was a huge pool and most likely far more than we can afford but hey why stop now. I will post the design tomorrow.

Good Luck, I would not do it again. You know how you get a warm fuzzy feeling when you look at old pictures of yourself growing up. I do not get those feelings when I look at pictures of my pool building process. I did it to save money, however due to some of the mistakes I made I am not sure I saved a penny. I am in a very rural area so there were not allot of pool builders to chose from so they could ask what ever price they wanted. I will say that I have a better pool than I would have gotten from a pool builder and I guess that is something to smile about. There are little things that make a pool personal, like fiber optic lighting, waterfalls, etc. that a pool builder will not want to be bothered with because it varies from there norm and will cause the project to take longer thus cutting into how may pools they can complete in a season. These little things have made my pool more worthwhile.

My guess is that here in California you can save 10-20% buy GCing the project yourself. This is in addition to the benefits Jason pointed out.

I begun the dig. I agree with Jason to a degree one cannot go into this without proper preparation and consultation. In California one is surrounded by talented pool builders struggling unfortunately. For my project I hired my own supervisor who will make sure each stage is done correctly. Each subcontractor (excavation, steel, plumb, electric, concrete, etc) will get paid upon inspection approval with some good faith deposits made where necessary. Cobra is not totally correct, I think that the savings for me is around 40-50%. as I go into my own journey you will see the great lengths I went to build the best pool I could for the money budgeted. For $40k I have a 40k gallon pool with water features and swim up bar. Once I can I will post pictures. I tried filming the dig but got caught up in the excitement and was too busy yesterday in directing the grading work and supervising the supervisor .

As I progress I hope my adventure is interesting to those on this forum and hopefully I can glean alot off of the experts experience.

All the best.

Here are some pics from pool dig started yesterday. Can you believe we moved about 220 CY of dirt.

To get here was quite an adventure. While my house has a fairly large lot, it is pie shaped such that the entrance is like the bottom of a funnel, where the drive way is about 120 feet and then widens going to the rear, and consequently the site of the pool is about 300 feet from the street entrance. Imagine having a smaller bobcat taking 1/4 CY scoops back and forth over 300 feet !!! Can you imagine how long 800 trips would take.

I decided I did not want to know and began a campaign to seek entry from the rear of my property. The problem - my property 's wall adjoins to an old dirt service road which is basically a buried water canal which for 200 years served as the lifeline to the area's citrus industry and on the other side is a public street but in another community with, of course to make matters worse, another HOA.

Everyone told me it would be impossible to do what I contemplated, which was to knock down my wall, fill a V-Ditch, take down a security fence and petiton for cross over rights with another property owner, all while getting two HOAs and a county utility company to agree within 2 weeks.

Well after writing various property access agreements, securing waivers and offering indemnities, I got it done. Any single one of these things if denied would have actually derailed my quest to build my own pool. Thankfully, it all went as planned and we were able to complete the dig and access my property the absolute optimal manner. A couple bottles of wine to the neighbor and invitation for a pool party to the neighboring HOA did not hurt either.

pics?

Here long last are some pics I meant to post of the first phase - the pool dig.

I also have design images I put together in Pool Studio, a cool program used to visualize in 3D your ideas. I spent about four days learning it and two months playing with it with the wifey watching over my shoulder. I definitely recommend designing your pool with your spouse together so later she cannot say you ignored her input or that you never took her viewpoint into consideration. Definitely worth the money if it prevents many fights later.

Let me know if you wish to see the 3D design and I will post it later.

A couple more....

And a few more....

Yes, please post your 3D design. It's fun to watch it become reality. Thanks!

As I stated I used a program called pool studio to design the pool. When I approached the design phase I decided to put everything I wanted in and then work backwards from that to arrive at something that was architecturally attractive (in my mind) and stylistically compatible with the main house. There was one thing else - affordability. However working craiglist, ebay and local classifieds hard I have been able to keep the luxury items in my plan. For instance, last month I purchased a pallet of items from a pool dealer liquidating the business. For a small amount of cash, I acquired at ten to twenty cents on the dollar color pool lights, fiber optic illuminators and stranded cables, sheer descents, laminars, automation systems, etc. I also purchased some equipment for under $2K consisting of Pentair 400K BTU heater, chlorinator, filter and pump. All in all I saved 80% which made luxury items as described affordable.

As to the design I went with a free form pool with a round 12' diameter tanning/wading shelf and a 12' diameter spa. I wanted basically two pools - a diving/plunging pool and a kids pool. On the shallow end I designed in a swim up bar with special engineered columns to support a cantilevered roof that will cover the entire swim up bar area, which also features seating for 12 people by way of submerged benches on either side of the pool. There also are three exits, steps exiting either side of the swim up bar and a classical rounded step down from the tanning shelf.

The side of the pool farthest from and visible from the main house and courtyard features a 18" natural stone face raised bond beam that is 32 feet long. The spa is in the middle with a 48" sheer descent in the center and one overflow on each side. There is one 36" sheer descent on each side of the spa and one fire bowl at each extreme of the raised bond beam which also serve to illuminate the steps/landing rising up to the raised patio surrounding the spa at night. A fire pit sits behind the spa in the rounded back portion of this raised spa. Under the spa is a shelf to sit under and allow the kids to play behind the sheer descent. I guess this is my version of a cheap man's grotto. On the deep end are two benches for safety and convenience.

As to additional water features, there are two laminars at the deep end that from the view of the main house will frame the future pool house that the swim up bar will abutt, two bubblers in the shelf and 2 spouts on each column of the swim-up bar. The swim up bar will house an outdoor kitchen. As to the pool house I had a cool idea, where I plan to run extra water pipes up the columns that will hold the cantilevered roof in the future and then run a rainfall under the eave of the cantilevered roofline. This will create a shower effect. I plan to put in a valve that will also add pressure and create a mist-er from the same water feed.

Let me know what you think.

A few more shots.

Looks like a resort When can we check in Keep the pics coming

Spillmar,

That looks great. Where can you buy the levitating hammock in your last rendering? I'd like to get one of those!

Thanks Brent. I checked out your pictures -and love the flooring on the patio. Great pattern and tilework.

I am going with pavers for several reasons - 1) easier to get under to address any leaking pipes or other. 2) HOA easement runs under left hand side pool deck and they accepted my argument that pavers were not permanent. Also it did not hurt that I found 27 pallets of top brand pavers for $1 sq ft, which brings it almost same cost as laying ready mix. While I had the dump truck and tractor here I had 40 CY of sand and gravel for the paver base brought in so I could use the same crew to move it. I also took care of grading with the same crew, again to save funds because of minimums in this area.

I hope to begin plumbing and rebar in the few weeks and plan on shotcrete in June. I am so looking forward to seeing the pool take form.

The levetating hammock needs a couple trees. Working on that lol.

Absolutely gorgeous - one of the most beautiful pools I've seen. Can't wait to see the finished product.

WOW that's a crazy looking pool. Can't wait to see finish pics!

Thanks Izuggy for the complement. My two girls can't wait either. Appreciate the response Whoozer, hopefully I can post more pictures as it advances.

I am in the process of scheduling the plumbing, electrical, rebar and shotcrete. There are so many experienced and hard working folks out there right now looking for work, that it makes me sympathize with their plight. My feeling is that if there was more liberal credit available for pool construction they would all be busy.

In the meantime, for the owner builder it seems the right time to build and manage one's own project. Aside from rebar, most materials and service costs are the lowest they have been in sometime. In addition there is a alot of liquidation activity of materials and products out there. At this juncture it looks without the pool house I will come in under $40K including the cost of a side courtyard.