New in-ground in swampy Louisiana. Build is ON!!!

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Okay - all of these grass seed ideas have been extremely helpful. And since I've been trying to convince my husband to throw rye grass down in the pasture for the horses during the winter - this may just be the ticket to get the whole thing moving in that direction.

How exciting - tile and coping on the schedule! Can't wait to see those pictures! - Karen
 
Okay, pics from yesterday.

Picture of the the future equipment pad with its stub out for plumbing

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Gratuitous non pool shot of my hard work. I got the back wall of the house painted (thats the aqua color), we painted our house when we moved in 2 years ago and ran out of paint on that last wall. Well I wasn't about to stare at it in self disgust from my pool, so it had to be done. Yay. Also the gate we built to keep the doggies in. Because the orange fence is less than useless.

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Finally a shot of the coping going down on the pool. They still have the spa to complete, and the wrong tile got delivered from the supply warehouse, so we are having to wait until Monday for it to come in. They didn't even order the right kind. Apparently they re-ordered the tile for the last job the builder had in my little town. He wants all the tile to come from the same batch, so they are overnighting it from Dallas, my glass tile is coming from a warehouse closer, but it will probably be Monday before they start on the waterline tile. They probably won't come back today just to finish the spa coping either because it would't be a full day. Which sucks because its another day I have to be here to make sure they get it right, since I'm having a different tile in the spa, and its supposed to run down the front and I'm going to be making sure it gets done like I want it

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But on the plus side, the plumber showed up yesterday and is coming back today I think to run our gas line and install the hot water heater for the house. It probably won't be able to be completed until the pool heater is also installed because they won't install the meter until both pass inspection, and besides I have to get an electrician to hook up the water heater too, but the breaker needs to be downsized since its not an electric heater so my PB said to get the guy who is coming to do all the pool stuff to do it while he is here and it will work out cheaper than getting him to come out twice. At this point all I literally care about is getting the gas to pass in the trench before rains make it fall in and I have to dig it out again because husband is offshore. I really, really, really, really don't want to wield a shovel.
 
Well I had my first and hopefully last you're gonna have to tear something out moment. Looking at the coping they did, they made odd looking splice to make the 2" coping fit. It needed to at least mirror each side and have a centered grout line. PB agrees and they'll redo the two center coping stones to meet in the middle. They are also raising the spa depth by 2" with concrete.

Apparently the sub is not happy about my choosing glass tile. It's film faced and they don't like laying it. Because and I quote "the tiles want to pop off when you remove the film". Well it's NPT arctic lagoon. It's not exactly uncommon. So cry me a freaking river and suck it up. And perhaps let the thinset dry a little more before removing the film next time. At least it's only a small amount. Gee. I could do it. And why would you even tell me that. Of course they started out with the wrong tile being delivered and so now there's been no work because they are waiting on all the tile to come in. I got the waterline tile in via the PB today. But no glass yet and no stacked stone. So I don't see any chance of them coming tomorrow either. Plus I pointed out to the PB they don't have enough coping to do the spa. So they need more of that.

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In other developments. I have my gas line and on demand water heater for the house run. I called the PB to find out his electrical sub so I could get them to change the hot water breaker to a smaller circuit and install an outlet for the new gas unit. And he wouldn't tell me who it was. Wanted me to wait until they were out here and get them to do it then "to save money" uh huh. How long before the electrician graces us with his presence? At the end of the project apparently. Well, I'd quite like hot water in less than the 3-4 weeks that wait will be so I hired my licensed electrician neighbor. Gee.
And I was so annoyed that they ran over my freshly dug trench for the gas line with their digger after I told them not to and compacted the dirt to the point I had to redig to fill my trench. That I have mostly filled my trench in all the way, I had left it and offered the guys when they were digging that they could run their water line along part of it. But having to dig to fill it in myself (because husband is offshore) as an out of shape, 39 year old woman, has made me vindictive. So I think I'll fill the whole thing in - the gas line has to be covered anyway before they'll give me a meter, and I'm not sure leaving them 6" to lay the water line will be enough for the gas co. So there. They can dig themselves a whole new trench from the crossing point. By hand at the point it crosses over.

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Yeah, I'm gonna go with the cookies might have to dry up. The day they put in the tile the two tile guys disappeared for 2 hours to get some concrete nails from the hardware store 5 mins up the road. They came back with food and then proceeded to take another hour to eat it. Not only did they not even start the spa but they rushed to get the coping done on the short sides - which is why it ended up looking terrible. Thanks for going that extra mile....not. I mean, they couldn't even do a basic decent job for me. When I've tried to be so thoughtful and helpful to them. That really, really ticks me off.
 
You are so funny. Let me know and if you decide to forgo either the xanax or wine, I can have Bob show up with his holster on :). I can't wait to see the glass tile - when they finally get it all done along with the coping - its going to look amazing. And you really are creating an oasis in the back with your studio and the pool. By the way - I've got you down for crawfish!
 
Well there's not much to update on. They had gotten the wrong tile in last week, and the PB decided he wasn't sending anyone over until all the materials were in. So another almost week delay.
However I did get my plumber and electrician to install my hot water heater and now we have gas running at our house.

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We are hoping the money we save on heating the water with electric will somewhat offset the cost of of running the pool pump.

On the pool front. The right tile finally showed up late in the week, along with the tile guys. So we got some progress. The pool waterline tile is in, they ran out of coping stone to finish the spa, but that should be in Monday. Sigh. At least they were doing a good job of measuring and cutting the spa tile to make sure there wasn't any off center cuts and it all looked even. The tile guys put a bit of my glass tile in, to see how it looked.

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The glass tile is pretty and it looks good. Between you and me, the designer in me wishes it was a little more green. Mostly because its paired with the travertine. The arctic lagoon is absolutely beautiful, but the beige travertine doesn't bring out its full potential. I see it on cchopkins' pool and the gray tones its paired with, make it absolutely sing. I shopped long and hard looking for a great tile we could also afford, well I found the perfect tile, if I could have had anything. It would have been this:

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But that stuff was over $30 a sf, and there wasn't enough money in the budget. Even though we were limiting the amount we were using. So I got the best looking and best quality aqua tile I could find at the pool supply store, because at least they were all in my budget. I'm hoping the arctic lagoon looks better when its has the stack stone next to it. I don't think having against the stark white of plaster backing is helping how it looks to me.

I'm also picking grouts at the moment. Its not easy. For a start the color on the bag bears no resemblance whatsoever to how it looks in real life.
This is what I have so far.

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I like it on the travertine. On the waterline tile I'm not so sure. When I picked it I didn't really notice that the edges of the tile are all lighter. It sure doesn't look like it in the catalog. And there wasn't a tone difference on the sample I had. But the batch of tiles I got, its like every one has lighter edges. It kind of looks like its designed to look like thats the grout. I'm not sure if I should use a different grout for that tile. But its kind of grayish in tone. I definitely want to use grout that's the tonal match to the travertine in the glass tile, to bring continuity through it. I don't know. I'm a perfectionist when it comes to design ideas. So I could use another set of eyes and opinions as a sounding board.

Allegedly we are 'on the board' for the deck and pathway to be formed and maybe even poured this week. I was promised that last week. We'll see.
 

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imperator said:
I could be way of here ... but that looks like the other color in the Arctic series. Could just be the lighting and camera though.
Click to expand...

What we have is Arctic Lagoon. It does look dark in the pictures. Its lighter and more aqua in person. I probably should get my DSLR out and start taking pics, but I've been using my iPhone since its so easy to upload from there.

The tile I posted that I wished I could've had was Spirit by Original Style. There was Arctic Ice that was greener but it was so light it would not have looked right either. My choices were pretty much out of the NPT catalog, if I wanted to see a sample before buying, at least from the pool supply wholesaler that my PB uses. I went around all the tile stores in town, but their prices were just way out of range on anything that resembled a 1x1 glass tile. I want to say the Arctic Lagoon ended up being around $12-13 a sf, I had a $6sf allowance, so it ended up costing me about $7 a sf extra. The original style came in at about $36 a sf, and I'm pretty sure that didn't include tax either. When they told me the price, I just smiled sweetly and headed for the door with my heart broken. LOL. It was the same price all over town, so they are mighty proud of it. That stuff is beautiful though. In my dreams I'd have the whole waterline that tile. With thick straight edge travertine slabs for coping. And then I wake up and remember we're "poor". LOL.
 
Well, no sight nor sound of any workmen on site today. In all fairness it was forecasted to rain, and it did sprinkle a bit. Since no-one showed up, I hightailed it into the 'big city' and to a big tile supplier to see if they had other grout colors. They had plastic grout chips. Fancy. On the strength of the color of the sample I got 2 bags. Because I didn't feel like giving them an excuse that they 'didn't have it' to delay finishing the tile.

Of course I had to mix up a bit to see how it looked against some scrap tile. Right now I can say I sure hope it dries lighter. Like a lot.

I've already had over a week of delays because the 'tile warehouse' sent the wrong tile. We are currently delayed either 'due to rain' or because they didn't order enough coping stone to finish and although its an 'in stock' color, the warehouse was waiting on a shipment because all they had there was 'slim pickings'. I really can't remember which excuse it is today. Either way I'm slightly fed up. I'm about ready to see the tile finished and the deck and path at least started.

There is no way they are going to be ready to do plaster by their 30 day 'deadline' post gunite. That would be by the weekend. I don't know how long the concrete deck has to cure before they can do the spray deck, or how long that has to cure before they can finish the tile.

I know I'm just whinging and that really we aren't doing too bad, especially considering some of the build delays y'all have had, or considering we had the mudpocalypse. But I'm sure fed up of having a mud pit in the back yard, with 4 dogs running through it and back into the house via the doggy door, and not being able to do anything about it until they have laid the pathway across it and finished trenching for the electric and water fill lines and decided what they are going to do with their extra dirt piles.

But on the plus side the plumber came and took out the electric hot water heater. The gas water heater kicks butt. I'm sat here waiting on the inspector to come and 'inspect', so I can start closing up the huge hole in the wall where they had to run pipes and electric for it. It was so nice to discover they didn't bother insulating the exterior utility room wall AT ALL. How our pipes didn't freeze and burst last winter I'll never know. I can at least get some in there now around the pipes. Sigh. I guess there's another project looming in our near future.
I really think eventually we'll have almost just completely rebuilt this house from the inside out when were are done with fixing all its issues.
 
First, I love the double coping around the spa. It looks great. I also think the arctic lagoon tile is really going to be set off against the coping and waterline tile - so for that reason, I agree with the tonal approach you are taking. I only noticed the edges of the waterline tile after you pointed it out and I squinted. Also because the glass tile is so fabulous, you may be overly picky on your water line tile (I know I am on mine) Guests would probably never notice - whereas you may stare at it day in and day out.

I am completely empathetic about the frustration when no work gets done on perfectly good days to do work because we all know that there will be rainy days when work can't get done! I'm also envious of Two Labs 17 crew work force....Sigh. Martin Kennedy said, take their timeline estimate and double it. That helps reset the expectation.

-Karen
 
Not a tile expert either, sorry!

And another sorry about the progress. I know my lightning fast build certainly isn't helping anything :( I'm sure before long we'll be in the same boat wondering where everyone went?

I'm with Karen, the double coping on the spa looks incredible. Great material choices. Hopefully the weather will dry up for you and the guys will be back out there working like crazy.
 
Not a pool expert either but I did climb into my pool in work clothes and heels (but only to the bottom step because its full of rain water) and hung my head upside down to look at the mastic job from underneath our tile for comparison. Of course Bob was looking at me like "what are you doing". So were the horses for that matter. I would have taken a photo but it was getting dark. So being that I still had no opinion, with I showed Bob your photos and in the second to last one he saw that you can see the trowel lines where they troweled the mastic onto the pool wall and then applied the tiles. Because of that, it appears to be properly installed but it never hurts to ask the question and see how they respond. You know some of the DIY'ers might have an opinion or JJWalker has good input on construction related items and he's a two time pool builder - you might be able to private message him if he's not reading the forums lately.
 
Aww thanks Karen! I'm giggling at the mental picture.

I'm going to shoot a nicely worded email with pics to my PB. If its not a problem then its all good, if it is, its his money backed guarantee on the line so he should probably know how its being done. He hasn't been on site since they laid the tile. Its only not troweled on the short part of the spa wall that protrudes into the pool. Its only back buttered there and there are large gaps. The rest of it is troweled, but most of it isn't quite the width of the tiles so there is a gap at the bottom. Thats probably not as big an issue as the tiles on the spa, because the gap is above the waterline and plaster and isn't covered by coping. Above it will be ledger stone panels. They are not grouted in, so there's a chance if water can trickle into the voids behind the tile it could get trapped there and cause tiles to pop off if it freezes come winter.

I know imperator did his tile, I'm going to shoot him a PM see if he can come give his opinion.
 
Karen, too bad Bob did not have his camera on him to take a pic of that! So cute and sweet!

On tile with the gaps. I also see it being a possible area for grossness growing. You do not want any place things and stuff can hide like algae.

Let us know what the PB says. I would also print out and save these pics with notes about what you said and what the PB said and have him sign it as proof IF it causes problems in the future!

Kim
 

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