here's our reality. far from what we're going for, but I'm up for the challenge.
tile and elevation: worried about the elevation/grading issue that I still don't have figured out well enough. Worried the tile will look outdated and will get calcium on it but I can't help but love cobalt blue so Im going for it with the southwestern look. may be putting up a 2 post arbor in the back to direct eyes off of the ugly roof behind us or a trellis. will have lots of greenery like the pic with the yellow wall I posted above:
looking west towards our elevation. a good 16" higher than the pool, I believe. u can see where they took out some grass in front of the pool to level it out but they also left a bunch of dirt. the pool was already 4.5" higher than the house/porch and i'm still trying to figure out how to make sure water runs out the side of the house instead of in my house. someone today told me to use a level to figure out how to grade. will have about 7 small fruit trees in the corner that is higher and the chickens will go downhill a bit. they r in a temporary setting:
here's the Baja that wasn't rebarred enough on the east side of the bubbler. hoping they get it right at shotcrete and that they can add 6" of shotcrete without rebar in that spot.
elevation. see the bottom of my block wall (with the oliander roots i'm trying to kill out from underneath the block wall). it seems like a high elevation for a 5-6" block wall that they are putting in - 12' on the back side of the pool and 10' on the west (left) side of the pool. feels like a tricky spot although when I see it from a camera view it doesn't look so bad and I hope I will be able to use common sense to grade if I don't end up hiring someone. will have a pool fence there, too. retainer wall will be 8" from edge of 16" coping on the back side and 12" on the left side then a fence directly behind that.
grape arbor with 13 year old grapes. fence will be 3 ft from waters edge so it's a weird transition. I was thinking of making the arbor shorter and keeping it 3' outside of the fence for code/safety (pool doesn't have to be up to code as my house will, but I dont' want my kids climbing it). that shortens the arbor 7 feet and that makes me sad. it's just in an awkward place, not sure how the posts will look if I leave them where they r, inside the fence. we might just chop it a foot or so and have it on the poolside of the fence closer to the fence. it's an awkward spot for decision making because we didn't want to chop the arbor now for a few reasons, permits, old vines, having a hard time picturing for sure how we'll want it... We need to put in a deck in the corner and the shorter the arbor gets, the more awkard I feel the transition area is from arbor to Marbella deck. small deck in corner and was going to lay rustic old world brick under the arbor. in between, maybe some pavers with river rock or 1/4" gold (forget what they call it) stone. need to figure this out this weekend. thought of having them move the plumbing but that's ridiculous. I think I just need to change the arbor plans, but it makes me sad. sorry, awful pic