Houston, TX Pool Build Diary - From Design to Dive-In
- Thread starter platipus
- Start date
OK, kolaches delivered 90 minutes ago! We dropped 2 dozen on the crew. The silence that followed for the next few minutes as they went through them was pretty funny.
On a related note; Marla, thanks for the idea (original credit to Suz) because I literally just had the best kolache I ever ate. I'm not a Texas native so they were a new phenomenon to me when we arrived 10 years ago. I've always just kind of been "meh" about them. These however were delicious. I'm (almost) embarrassed to say I ate 3 of them.... They were still warm and I've had warm ones before so that was not it. The bread dough was just pillowy and light and awesome. Guess we found a new "thing". This is an independent place in town and right next to a Mexican taco place that is also awesome. They do barbacoa tacos which are off the hook.
plat.
On a related note; Marla, thanks for the idea (original credit to Suz) because I literally just had the best kolache I ever ate. I'm not a Texas native so they were a new phenomenon to me when we arrived 10 years ago. I've always just kind of been "meh" about them. These however were delicious. I'm (almost) embarrassed to say I ate 3 of them.... They were still warm and I've had warm ones before so that was not it. The bread dough was just pillowy and light and awesome. Guess we found a new "thing". This is an independent place in town and right next to a Mexican taco place that is also awesome. They do barbacoa tacos which are off the hook.
plat.
Looking good, plat!!!
my pantry is bare and they have my garage completely blocked off
no goodies for them. Just a smile and a thank you!
my pantry is bare and they have my garage completely blocked off
no goodies for them. Just a smile and a thank you!Plat, glad it worked out! What kind did you end up getting? At the Kolache Factory, I love the Rancheros. I'm not a native Texan either, but quickly discovered I loved kolaches!
We got sausage, jalapeno & cheese and sausage & cheese. My favorite was the jalapeno, but they're both good.
Update as of 1pm. Nursenini won the race (congrats!!!). We've got about 2 - 3 hours to go still. The spa is next and it's.... intricate. I'll update on that when I have pictures to help explain.
plat.
Josh I had to look up what they are...........yummmmmmmm BUT I am safe as no one around here makes them BUT I will keep looking!
Kim
Kim
Seriously, we are both winners today! Both our crews showed up about the same time and at the end of the day we both have pools!
No wonder yours is taking longer! They took a food break and you have all those angles and corners. And my length is only 30', so several more feet of area to cover on yours. I see you also have a negative edge spa, is it 360, 3sided or 2 sided? Hard for me to tell from your design picture. They did my spa last. It definately took some time.
In all, there were about 8 guys and 2 trucks here.
No wonder yours is taking longer! They took a food break and you have all those angles and corners. And my length is only 30', so several more feet of area to cover on yours. I see you also have a negative edge spa, is it 360, 3sided or 2 sided? Hard for me to tell from your design picture. They did my spa last. It definately took some time.
In all, there were about 8 guys and 2 trucks here.
We'll call it 3 1/2 sides. The back side originally was just supposed to be raised beam and be a 3 sided overflow, but then I got an idea that we could build a channel that was only a few inches wide and deep to let the back side overflow as well. Our builder gave it some thought and said he could do it. So you won't be able to see it overflow looking at it from the back side, but looking at the top it will look like 4 sides. We hope.... We're doing a few things in this build that I just dreamed up and our builder figured out a way to make them happen.
It's all going pretty well and we're extremely happy with our builder and his approach and attitude towards everything so far. He keeps me in check with the reality of things, but also has not shied from my crazy *** ideas either.
We'll know more tomorrow when we can walk inside the pool vessel, but so far we've only had one issue today that we caught. There is a long planter that we are going to wrap in glass tile. It was supposed to be raised 6" above coping level so it stands out. We noticed it only got gunited to coping level and pointed it out and he spoke to the gunite crew and they are going to get it taken care of today. The crew said they needed rebar added to raise it though so he headed out to get some.
The final challenge will be the spa. It has a lot going on and we made some last minute tweaks. If the planter is the only issue we had that was off of plan, then we will be in really good shape from today. As with anything this complex though, I suspect we will hit one or two other items. They just haven't revealed themselves yet.
plat.
plat, this should be a lesson why the owner NEEDS to be there for this big day! Good catch!
I love that your PB did not say "no" but seemed to think about it and find a way to do your crazy ideas. I wonder if he will use your to as a show pool for his talents???
Kim
I love that your PB did not say "no" but seemed to think about it and find a way to do your crazy ideas. I wonder if he will use your to as a show pool for his talents???
Kim
This has been one of his more "interesting" projects I think it's safe to say. He's already made me promise that he could come over and swim in the RiverFlow when it's up and running to which I agreed! I imagine we'll be asked for a at least few new customer visits.
plat.
plat.
OK, so yeah, now this makes total sense when you say Balinese design. We looked at every Bali villa pool photo we could find as we did our initial planning. This pool in particular was a major design inspiration for us:
We took a lot of cues from it. If our yard allowed for it, we would have copied it even more. Unfortunately our fence line and easement are not squared or parallel to the house, so we had to stagger the back wall down. We love the daybed under the thatched roof. That is why I said before that if we had the room, we would be looking more at adding a Tiki area like you built.
plat.
Wow! I think we swam in that pool on our honeymoon in Bali. Let me guess, they play traditional Balinese music with dinner under that cabana roof on the upper left? And to the direct bottom-left is the hotel desk area, yes? And banana trees on the back 40? Wow. Small world. The pool water was not so great as I recall, but it was a really great experience.
MarkTX,
That was not my photo. We've never even been to Bali, LOL. We just really like the style. If it helps you remember that villa name is Villa Sembilan by the way.
plat.
I thought that was your foot too! Lol I think because the thousands of pictures of Balinese pools I researched I never ran across thus one, but I have it now haha
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
If you can get your landscaping anywhere close to that you are on the right track Bali is paradise on Earth.
Bali is paradise on Earth.
Well not only did I lose the race, I didn't even finish today! And that's OK.
6:00pm rolled around and the gunite foreman talked to our builder and they made the call that they wouldn't be able to start and finish the spa today since sunset was coming. Almost everything else is done though. It was a 12 hour day for them. They are going to start it all up again tomorrow morning.
I also watched our builder call out issues on one section of wall and the gunite crew stripped it down to rebar to re-shoot it tomorrow. The gunite crew is living up to their reputation as the "go to" company to use in the Houston area and I continue to be impressed by our builder. The crew did seem pretty "amused" when we started talking about the detail for the dog ramp. The angle was wrong and we asked to have it adjusted. The foreman looked up at me and jokingly said said "you're paying for it so we'll do it". It was pretty funny.
plat.
6:00pm rolled around and the gunite foreman talked to our builder and they made the call that they wouldn't be able to start and finish the spa today since sunset was coming. Almost everything else is done though. It was a 12 hour day for them. They are going to start it all up again tomorrow morning.
I also watched our builder call out issues on one section of wall and the gunite crew stripped it down to rebar to re-shoot it tomorrow. The gunite crew is living up to their reputation as the "go to" company to use in the Houston area and I continue to be impressed by our builder. The crew did seem pretty "amused" when we started talking about the detail for the dog ramp. The angle was wrong and we asked to have it adjusted. The foreman looked up at me and jokingly said said "you're paying for it so we'll do it". It was pretty funny.
plat.
I'm sorry they didn't get finished today. Looks amazing so far!!
I'm working the next 2 days so I'll check back when I can.
I'm working the next 2 days so I'll check back when I can.
So this is the deal. I originally found a really bad low resolution photo of that pool and then a couple more. I didn't think at the time to search on the Villa name on the photo so that was all I had. When I did think to search on it finally, I found a couple of good high res pictures and that one was the best. I actually thought about cutting out the foot in the photo but I was just too lazy. So there you have it. MarkTX, I am going to stick with the story that it's your foot because that's just funny...
plat.