The back story:
In May 2016 we bought a Bestway 16'x42" above ground pool. We live in the central valley of California and our soil is called Sandylome. It just means we have a lot of sand in the soil. This can be a good thing and bad. But I digress. We put the pool up after leveling the ground. We had a slope of 1 foot to dig out. Using a line level staked down on the high side we measured the low side and that gave us how deep we were going to have to dig the high side down. Luckily it was only 1 foot at the deepest end. We set the pavers using the 2x4, stake, and level method. Our pool was level to 1/4 of an inch. I got all the information from this awesome site on how to do this by the way.
Now fast forward to June and the pool was up and we were swimming. The only regret I had was not digging the sod back 2 feet around the pool because our bionic Nut and Bermuda grass grew sideways and under the pool then up through the gorilla pad, tarp, trap and then the liner. I was patching grass holes in the liner the next summer. Not a big deal just more work removing the grass 2ft back after the pool was already up. The next hurdle came the second season. There are pocket gophers in this area and for some reason they love my yard. The first year they never dig by the pool well that changed in year 2. They dug under the pool. You could feel thier runs on the pool floor. The weight of the pool did collapse the tunnels but they dug under 2 of the legs which caused the pool to start leaning. Then they decided to move to the side that had less pressure due to the leaning pool and went to town on the liner seam. You can probably guess what happened next...yep they split the seam and now the pool was toast. Seems like a book for only 2 seasons of swimming but you loyal readers deserve the whole story.
This brings us to the current situation today. Wife wants something like the picture below. So I have embarked an this insane trek to give it to her lol. Wish me luck as I will continue to post my journey.
In May 2016 we bought a Bestway 16'x42" above ground pool. We live in the central valley of California and our soil is called Sandylome. It just means we have a lot of sand in the soil. This can be a good thing and bad. But I digress. We put the pool up after leveling the ground. We had a slope of 1 foot to dig out. Using a line level staked down on the high side we measured the low side and that gave us how deep we were going to have to dig the high side down. Luckily it was only 1 foot at the deepest end. We set the pavers using the 2x4, stake, and level method. Our pool was level to 1/4 of an inch. I got all the information from this awesome site on how to do this by the way.
Now fast forward to June and the pool was up and we were swimming. The only regret I had was not digging the sod back 2 feet around the pool because our bionic Nut and Bermuda grass grew sideways and under the pool then up through the gorilla pad, tarp, trap and then the liner. I was patching grass holes in the liner the next summer. Not a big deal just more work removing the grass 2ft back after the pool was already up. The next hurdle came the second season. There are pocket gophers in this area and for some reason they love my yard. The first year they never dig by the pool well that changed in year 2. They dug under the pool. You could feel thier runs on the pool floor. The weight of the pool did collapse the tunnels but they dug under 2 of the legs which caused the pool to start leaning. Then they decided to move to the side that had less pressure due to the leaning pool and went to town on the liner seam. You can probably guess what happened next...yep they split the seam and now the pool was toast. Seems like a book for only 2 seasons of swimming but you loyal readers deserve the whole story.
This brings us to the current situation today. Wife wants something like the picture below. So I have embarked an this insane trek to give it to her lol. Wish me luck as I will continue to post my journey.
and this from wife and daughter 
hehe