New member but I've been reading through a few threads on here and love all the knowledge being shared by this community. We are planning a pool install and backyard renovation (and more!) in Ottawa, Canada and would love your advice. We have never owned a pool and are finding it hard to make decisions on the design.
Some background: It all started when the big, beautiful ash tree in our backyard got infested with the emerald ash bore. Hundred of dollars in injections were not enough and it had to come down. My wife had for years had been saying, "When that tree has to come down, we are putting in a pool." Well, here we are. But our house is a small bungalow and we have growing kids and there's no back exit to our backyard... you can't put in a pool and then move houses, right? So here we are putting in a pool and doing a massive renovation to our bungalow (putting on a second story plus pretty much a full main floor re-design). I suppose I'll be working until I'm 70 to pay for it, but hey, at least I can relax in my pool, right?
Our house contractor does fiberglass pool installs from Latham (Trilogy/Viking), so that is what we are going with. We have not gotten into mechanicals at all yet.
Although we are planning to put in the pool this summer, we are still in the design phase and trying to figure out things like:
a) What is the optimal placement for the pool? (We have kind of settled on it being along the back. We had thought about doing it along a side, in order to allow for a bigger run of grass, but I don't think it allows enough room between pool fence and deck stairs - too cramped.) And what orientation? (For example, can we fit seating in the bottom right of the plan? This is the north east corner and gets the most afternoon sun.)
b) What shape of pool and how big? (Our current choices are pictured. Number one right now is the Gemini pool, possibly with a tanning ledge and spa.)
c) Spill over or separate spa? Or a completely separate unit so we can use it outside of pool season? (We're not sure how much we'll use it in off-season when the pool isn't open, so perhaps the integrated spa will be more fun?)
We have decided to fence the pool in separately so that the kids (8, 6) can play in the backyard when we aren't supervising.
I attached some pictures:
- Drawing of the front of the house and back of the house to get a sense of the overall plan. (Ignore the roof in the "back" picture - it will be a mono pitched roof like in the front drawing.)
- One of the architect's rough ideas for the backyard, one with rectangle and one with freeform pool. The deck design is also TBD but we are leading towards something like what is pictured. (Please ignore the white rectangle in the middle of the plan - I was just covering up a planted area that was drawn in but that we don't think we want in order to have more open playing space.)
- Pics of three fiberglass pools we are considering
Front of house:
Rear of house:
Backyard plan with rectangle pool:
Backyard plan with freeform pool (note that the sun hits the back/north (bottom right in the picture) part of the yard for most of the day - that's why we propose orienting the Gemini the way it is shown in the picture - to maximize seating in the sunny bottom right corner):
Gemini freeform pool:
Gemini pool with tanning ledge picture:
Claremont rectangle pool:
Polaris rectangle pool:
I'm probably missing something here so please ask questions. I'll post more pictures if helpful.
Thanks in advance for your input!
Some background: It all started when the big, beautiful ash tree in our backyard got infested with the emerald ash bore. Hundred of dollars in injections were not enough and it had to come down. My wife had for years had been saying, "When that tree has to come down, we are putting in a pool." Well, here we are. But our house is a small bungalow and we have growing kids and there's no back exit to our backyard... you can't put in a pool and then move houses, right? So here we are putting in a pool and doing a massive renovation to our bungalow (putting on a second story plus pretty much a full main floor re-design). I suppose I'll be working until I'm 70 to pay for it, but hey, at least I can relax in my pool, right?
Our house contractor does fiberglass pool installs from Latham (Trilogy/Viking), so that is what we are going with. We have not gotten into mechanicals at all yet.
Although we are planning to put in the pool this summer, we are still in the design phase and trying to figure out things like:
a) What is the optimal placement for the pool? (We have kind of settled on it being along the back. We had thought about doing it along a side, in order to allow for a bigger run of grass, but I don't think it allows enough room between pool fence and deck stairs - too cramped.) And what orientation? (For example, can we fit seating in the bottom right of the plan? This is the north east corner and gets the most afternoon sun.)
b) What shape of pool and how big? (Our current choices are pictured. Number one right now is the Gemini pool, possibly with a tanning ledge and spa.)
c) Spill over or separate spa? Or a completely separate unit so we can use it outside of pool season? (We're not sure how much we'll use it in off-season when the pool isn't open, so perhaps the integrated spa will be more fun?)
We have decided to fence the pool in separately so that the kids (8, 6) can play in the backyard when we aren't supervising.
I attached some pictures:
- Drawing of the front of the house and back of the house to get a sense of the overall plan. (Ignore the roof in the "back" picture - it will be a mono pitched roof like in the front drawing.)
- One of the architect's rough ideas for the backyard, one with rectangle and one with freeform pool. The deck design is also TBD but we are leading towards something like what is pictured. (Please ignore the white rectangle in the middle of the plan - I was just covering up a planted area that was drawn in but that we don't think we want in order to have more open playing space.)
- Pics of three fiberglass pools we are considering
Front of house:
Rear of house:
Backyard plan with rectangle pool:
Backyard plan with freeform pool (note that the sun hits the back/north (bottom right in the picture) part of the yard for most of the day - that's why we propose orienting the Gemini the way it is shown in the picture - to maximize seating in the sunny bottom right corner):
Gemini freeform pool:
Gemini pool with tanning ledge picture:
Claremont rectangle pool:
Polaris rectangle pool:
I'm probably missing something here so please ask questions. I'll post more pictures if helpful.
Thanks in advance for your input!
