Yeah I am more than happy with how it turned out. It is better than I thought! I wasn't sure how they would fill in the dirt around the boulders on the right side of the stairs. I was thinking they would have to shape pavers around them but if you look closely they cemented in river rock around them. I really like how they turned out and even though I hate little rocks (because my kids constantly throw them) I actually love these. I might do this with the flower bed later if I can't keep any plants alive in it. Put a couple large boulders in there and then fill in the gaps with river rock and cement away. I didn't even think when people were saying to put rocks in there that they could be permanent. Whenever they would say rocks I would go into my "Never in a million years will I have small rocks around my pool" mode.
Thanks for the compliments! It really has been a humongous hassle. It is also very discouraging to see pools that are just as nice getting finished now that started way after mine. Oh well hopefully we'll be done soon and we can put this entire thing behind us!
I am the guy who has to be confrontational. Unfortunately I don't think one pool has been built without having to have some kind of discussion with the builder. Just remain calm and firm and tell them what you expect. Also be reasonable if it can't be done and figure out a way past it. I hope that your build goes really smooth! We built a house too and this has been more stressful than that but it also had its issues too and I was probably worked up about the same about that as I am with the pool. I think the only difference is our pool's design was so off kilter that there is a lot more 'winging' it with the design and that is something I have to trust them on. I also had to learn to wait until it gets finished before I got worked up on how something looked.
I will say except for the random person every few years on here that had a pool builder bail on their job and leaving them high and dry I would say mine has been one of the more difficult builds. I highly doubt though that you'll have a sales guy that is wanted in 2 states etc... We'll help you along! I know that this forum really helped me during the super difficult times. Thankfully now I am pretty numb to the entire thing so it is going much smoother now (plus the PB has good contractors working on stuff and those guys know I don't tolerate much at this point).
Yep! I think part of me is now thinking my PB doesn't order stuff until stuff is done because honestly why couldn't they have gotten my controller when I filled the change order. For a PB that type of thing shouldn't be hard to get quickly. I used to work for a company that would order equipment when they got another sale and had the cash flow. It sure seems like that is how they are behaving to me. I know they aren't hurting for money they are selling about 10 to 20 pools a month and they are all mostly more expensive than mine.
Hope you are getting better and fast!