OKC renovation - forty-year facelift

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PB was supposed to come install the lights before water reached the deep end niche (it is about a foot lower than the shallow end light) but didn't make it out until mid-afternoon, and the niche was underwater. He said he didn't mind getting his arms wet, but hated to get his head under water to run the light. Well, he will be going for a swim because the Pentair LEDs he brought were the wrong size - evidently for new construction and not retrofit into old size (Suncatcher, he called them) niches.

I spent a few hours cleaning up the side yard. Still have a lot to do, plus today we start brushing. PB has a special start up he prefers to do. Rather than running the pump 24/7 and brushing 2x/day for 10 days as plasterer instructed, PB wants us to brush 2x/day 3 days, no circulation, then he flocs the pool and vacs to waste on Wed and begins running the pump. Then he says 1x/day (but didn't say how long). He said he thinks plasterer over-zealous with brushing and probably says 2x/day 10 days just to get people to brush at least once. I don't know about that, but since he's cut all the plumbing lines to pressure test months ago, we cannot run the pump so will just do the best we can. He also said it wasn't necessary to brush the floor, just the walls, but again, I am not so sure about that. He is supposed to be here Monday and Tuesday "detailing out" the last few dozen things, says we could be swimming by Wednesday! Oh, I hope, hope, hope we are! :swim:

Water is already quite cloudy from calcium dust leaching out, I think. Here's a pic from late yesterday afternoon. It's much more opaque today, and will just get worse as we start brushing. Have to get out there now to skim, the wind is blowing all kinds of **** in.



 
Mia, you beat me to fill day! That's one accomplishment! Looking great so far. Now you've got the hard work behind you.
 
Thanks, everyone. We are so excited! The plaster has certainly given us a second wind (or is this the third, fourth or fifth wind?). We are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel and are so ready to get to enjoying this backyard for the next many, many years. I've already scheduled a week-long stay-cation in mid-June. This will be our "beach" vacation for a good while.

Brushed twice today, and skimmed four times (could have skimmed a dozen times, probably). The wind is blowing all the leaves and loose stuff from every square inch of my yard straight into the water, and I can see red dirt already on the steps as I brush them. I'd always wondered if we battled some kind of red algae and could only see it on the steps as wispy red dust, even when my water chemistry was totally clean, I had doubts. Several pool guys had told me it was good old Oklahoma dirt, and I guess they were right!
 
Beautiful!!! You're going to have a fabulous summer in your beautiful new pool!!!
 
It's gorgeous. And totally worth the wait.

It actually reminds me of pregnancy. Some days are good, some days are bad. It takes entirely too long. But you soon forget the achy back, nausea, and continuous Braxton Hicks once baby is here. Congrats!!
 
I appreciate everyone's well wishes so much! Who knew you needed a support group to get through the trials of a pool build/remodel? :)

Was hoping to have more to update today, but not much to say. Someone came to powerwash the deck and the retaining wall yesterday. It cleaned up the mortar bleed somewhat on the wall, but had only a slight difference in getting the swirl marks (from the previous snafu with a powerwasher) out. We're still waiting on the lights to be installed and plumbing to be hooked up, and our fence to be reset, along with the posts for our pergola erected. We will build the top of the pergola out ourselves, but wanted PB to anchor them on the concrete because we'd never done that before. Still want to have the deck stained and sealed, too, and we are waiting to see if the skimmer patch will lighten up anymore to test colors next week.

We did get our pergola wood delivered today, yay! And we're continuing brushing, brushing, skimming, skimming, brushing, brushing. PB is supposed to vac all the white dust off the bottom tomorrow. You can see the white pretty well in this pic, so I don't imagine this will be the exact final water color.



 
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Sweet, can't wait to see the Pergola up! At least I'm not the only lightless full pool. The empty niches are bugging me.
 
Thanks, guys. I keep hoping to post a "WE'RE DONE!" announcement but it is sloooww in coming. Currently still waiting on lots of things, like lights, completing the drainage, finding a leak (!) because we are having to top the water off with a hose or the autofiller for like, four hours a day. Evidently the light niches might be the culprits, so trying to find out about that. Shallow end skimmer won't pull, it's full of sand (but PB thinks he needs a special camera to figure that out? Stick your hand in there - packed full of construction sand!). Water leaking around the pump. Deck not sealed, even though we've elected to forgo any other treatments, like the staining and antiquing we were supposed to have. Sigh, sigh, sigh!!!

We started on the pergola this weekend, stained the bigger wood pieces and got four of the six bases set. Ran into a lot of problems with the concrete being sloped to allow runoff making for very crooked posts that don't want to get to plumb - and I am not at all confident in the "anchor to the concrete" post bases recommended by PB and we finally called a halt last night because we want a second opinion before we get too far gone. By 8pm, I was ready to say "forget it, cut through this concrete and we'll buy new posts to set three feet in the ground" because it seems SOOO rickety. Like, one was so wobbly I couldn't not hold it vertical. We were using the recommended concrete wedge screws that flare out in/below the concrete to hold the base down, but it wasn't good. I know the top wood members will add some stability, but I don't know that I can expect a miracle from them. We actually took two posts down when we stopped for the night because we lack such confidence in them. So right now I have two posts and one cross piece. Out of about a million. Bummer - really wanted that up for the Memorial Day party we are hosting this weekend. I guess I will be happy (who am I kidding, I would settle for "not-hostile" at this point) if we just get the bleeping pool running correctly with lights and no leaks, though!

P.S. - to "Thunder Fan" I sent you two private messages in response to yours a few weeks ago. I didn't hear back so hoping you got them!
 
Ditto, readyforapool! We are keeping on, keeping on, though, and forging ahead with our Memorial Day pool party. I've joked to DH that I need to tell people to bring their swimsuits, towels and steel-toed construction boots so we can finish this up!
 
We finally have lights! Since we moved to this house in 2011, they have never worked, so we are beyond excited. The picture doesn't really do it justice - in person it is glowing almost blue (these are plain non-colored LED Hayward CrystaLogic Universal Lights) with the gray plaster.



 
AWESOME! Yeah digital cameras suck at capturing the beauty of a lit pool @ night.

After I have a few drinks this weekend I'm going to bust out my real camera for some proper night shots of my pool.

I'm ecstatic that you have lights too! I know the empty feeling one has when they have a nicely plastered pool full of water and these strange unsightly empty niches.
 

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