Hello! We are just getting started on a new build, so I thought it would be fun to start a build thread. Here goes nothing!
Background: our first home had a pool that was built by the previous (first) owners. It was a salt water pool with an awesome slide and we loved it, especially our oldest son (currently 4 years old). Here are a few pictures from last Fall.
Around a year ago, I came across a listing for a newly constructed home that we loved. It had everything we could ever want and, despite not planning to leave our first home for at least another three or four years, we decided to take a leap and buy it. It didn't have a pool but it had a "pool-ready" backyard. The lot size was around 0.5 acres and the backyard was relatively flat, as shown here:
We moved into our current home earlier this year and decided to wait a few months before starting the pool build as there is no way we would have finished in time to swim this past summer. But now, we are ready to start!
What We Want: We had a very firm idea of everything that our pool had to have, namely:
While we had a strong idea of what we wanted, we had no idea how it should be implemented. This is because our yard was a complete blank canvas except for the existing main patio and a smaller patio off the media room (you can see both in the pictures above). We had ideas of integrating the two patios, or setting the outdoor living to the back by itself. We thought about combining the outdoor living and outdoor kitchen into a single space or dividing it into two separate spaces. In short, we were open to anything and really wanted the builders to take their best shot and feel unconstrained for design purposes.
The Design Process: I researched builders for weeks on here as well as a few other sites (Yelp, Houzz, NextDoor) and word of mouth from neighbors and friends. We ended up reaching out to around 10 builders in the area. We're in the middle of DFW so a handful located too far to the west or east wouldn't come out here. That left us with seven builders who came out, took measurements and came up with designs. Outside of one dud, we were very impressed with each of the designs. They were all completely different and it was fun to see how each designer interpreted our wish list above. We narrowed it down to a top three. We eliminated one of those three because the designer forgot to include the fire pit and their pool ran horizontal (i.e., parallel to the main patio). We preferred the other two in the top three that had the pool run vertically in the yard, which we never considered previously but ended up loving. Out of the top two, we decided on our PB for a few reasons: (1) we loved his design the most, (2) the cost was significantly lower than the other builder and (3) we liked our designer and the builder itself a lot and had a good feeling about them (and reviews on the web did nothing to dissuade our initial opinions).
The Winning Bid: Before we get into specifics, here are pictures of the winning bid:
Background: our first home had a pool that was built by the previous (first) owners. It was a salt water pool with an awesome slide and we loved it, especially our oldest son (currently 4 years old). Here are a few pictures from last Fall.
Around a year ago, I came across a listing for a newly constructed home that we loved. It had everything we could ever want and, despite not planning to leave our first home for at least another three or four years, we decided to take a leap and buy it. It didn't have a pool but it had a "pool-ready" backyard. The lot size was around 0.5 acres and the backyard was relatively flat, as shown here:
We moved into our current home earlier this year and decided to wait a few months before starting the pool build as there is no way we would have finished in time to swim this past summer. But now, we are ready to start!
What We Want: We had a very firm idea of everything that our pool had to have, namely:
- Geometric/straight line design
- Saltwater
- Spa
- Slide
- Outdoor living
- Outdoor kitchen
- Fire Pit
While we had a strong idea of what we wanted, we had no idea how it should be implemented. This is because our yard was a complete blank canvas except for the existing main patio and a smaller patio off the media room (you can see both in the pictures above). We had ideas of integrating the two patios, or setting the outdoor living to the back by itself. We thought about combining the outdoor living and outdoor kitchen into a single space or dividing it into two separate spaces. In short, we were open to anything and really wanted the builders to take their best shot and feel unconstrained for design purposes.
The Design Process: I researched builders for weeks on here as well as a few other sites (Yelp, Houzz, NextDoor) and word of mouth from neighbors and friends. We ended up reaching out to around 10 builders in the area. We're in the middle of DFW so a handful located too far to the west or east wouldn't come out here. That left us with seven builders who came out, took measurements and came up with designs. Outside of one dud, we were very impressed with each of the designs. They were all completely different and it was fun to see how each designer interpreted our wish list above. We narrowed it down to a top three. We eliminated one of those three because the designer forgot to include the fire pit and their pool ran horizontal (i.e., parallel to the main patio). We preferred the other two in the top three that had the pool run vertically in the yard, which we never considered previously but ended up loving. Out of the top two, we decided on our PB for a few reasons: (1) we loved his design the most, (2) the cost was significantly lower than the other builder and (3) we liked our designer and the builder itself a lot and had a good feeling about them (and reviews on the web did nothing to dissuade our initial opinions).
The Winning Bid: Before we get into specifics, here are pictures of the winning bid:
