Breaking The Dress Code

Pool Building Day 49: Pool School

We had Pool School today and the keys were officially turned over to us. That means no more Alex/Alec – never did figure that one out. Notice there have been no pictures of him. He hurts my brain. I avoid him.  Clearly having spent way too much time around pool chemicals he’s a difficult at best to describe.

The sort of fellow who is asked a simple yes or no question and gives you back a 20 minute answer that had absolutely nothing to do with what you’ve asked. No joke he is completely incapable of answering a question with a simple Yes or No.

He also assumes every question is an argument in disguise and gives you 12 reasons why what he thinks your thinking is wrong.

And he likes to tell you all about equipment you don’t have  - For instance I know all about the different kinds of drain options I don’t have. When all I needed to know what about the one I do have.

I’m very glad Alex/Alec is gone.

I’m also very very glad the pool is in our control.

So there is is… Pool Built and completely turned over in less than 50 days. I’m told that’s amazingly fast. It was a long time for me. I’m glad it’s over.

I’m going to write a post about the pool building themselves – who I’ve neglected to name up to this point but I want to wait a bit for the whole process to settle a bit in my head. I probably need a bit of distance from them before I write about them.

Pool Building Day 42: There Are No Words!!!!

Pool Building Day 39: These Jokers Swam In My Pool Before I Did!

Evidently the local frog population did not get the memo about not swimming in the pool yet. Cleaning out the skimmer, officially NOT my favorite thing.

Pool Building Day 38: Don’t let looks fool you

It would appear that we are done but we are not. Right now I have paid all my hard earned money for a really really pretty hole in my yard but I AM NOT allowed to swim in it.

A little man named Alex (or maybe Alec I can never tell what he’s saying) comes by every day or so and plays with stuff but keeps saying “No Swimming”

Pool Building Day 37: The Green Green Grass of Home

Oh this was a day I had dreamed about. The day I would have grass again. At about 11:00 our 5 pallets of “Palmetto” (Shade tolerant) St Augustine grass arrived.

Did I mention IT WAS FIVE PALLETS!! Oh my that’s a lot of grass. It looked daunting but after being told by the grass delivery guy that had only 30 hours to get it down before it would die … we got to work.

This didn’t seem like too big a deal. Not Puddin’ was all “It’s just like a puzzle!” And were were all “Hush up and go play somewhere else.”

And at that point our awesome neighbors from the Perfect Neighborhood came over and said Let us take your children away all day to a church fair and we said Hell Yes.

Then we called the Oldest Neighbor Boy to come help. Thank goodness for teenage boys with expensive X-Box addictions. Their sweat is easily bought.

Best quote of the day: Oldest Neighbor Boy “This isn’t so bad, I’d rather do this than clean my room”

Note the remaining wet spot in the dirt from previously mentioned toxic waste dumping.

And Sister Mercy were we dirty! Trust me internet when I tell you this was the clean part of me.

But 6.5 hours and 5 pallets of sod later we once again have a green backyard.

Pool Building Day 36: Water’s On The Rise

Pool Building Day 35 cont’d: Happy Earth Day

The Earth Day Acid Team had just barely climbed out of the pool when the next phase happened. These fellows showed up and started throwing the finish on the wall. Yes – throwing.

 

But it wasn’t long before it started looking like this.

And then this is the part where OSHA just needs to look away. Yes this is what it looks like. This fellow is walking around in sock feet with a HUGE BLOWTORCH that sounded like it was a freight train. Seriously I could not talk to my neighbor standing with me on the deck when they turned this thing on. They used the blowtorch to dry the finish faster.

Having somehow managed to not burn their feet off, the washing phase started next. The finish must be washed to reveal the pebble finish look. Every inch must be repeatedly sprayed AND brushed and then sprayed and brushed again.

So you can imagine that all that washing and spraying causes some awefully dirty water. Water you don’t want in your fresh new pool. So out comes the sump pump again and you know what they do with?

Dig big holes in my yard to bury it in. Happy Earth Day.

And at somewhere around 7:30 it was all done.

And then at long last they said “fill' ‘er up”

Pool Building Day 35: Happy Earth Day Part 1 - Otherwise knows and the day they poured tons acid all into my yard

I’ve been putting off writing this post for days now. Mostly because well it was just so huge. In about 8 hours they cleaned the pool, installed the finish, and started filling her up. It was a bit overwhelming.

The day started as expected – the interior clean up crew arrived.

This very friendly fellow showed up and drained the mosquito pond ground water that was in the pool. ** Note for those outside of Florida – Our water table is not as deep as our pools, so unless the pool is full a hole must be cut in the bottom to allow ground water up in the pool. Otherwise it will pop up out of the ground like a great big bathtub**

After he had the junk out he started the acid wash … you know where this stuff is running right. Look up, did you notice the sump pump in the picture above that pumped all the ground water up and to the ground… yeah that hasn’t been moved.

Remember the freshly graded soil above that was all ready for sod? Yeah not so much anymore.

To keep from hyperventilating (not a good idea given the fumes) over the hazmat area draining into my neighbors yard 2 days before their big party that is my yard I went over and took pictures of my pretty pretty solar powered fountain that I bought at Target last week. I love the earth really I do. Please dear earth forgive what they are doing to you today, because it’s not over yet.

More fun with chemicals to come…

Pool Building Day 33: Safety Inspection

So much for the whole you must be home thing. Evidently took on peek in yard saw the new fence and marked it passed. No Drama.

Day 32 – The day that just won’t go away

Something else happened on day 32 that I forgot to mention. They “yard clean-up” fellow came. Really the fellow was so unpleasant that I guess I just really tried to forget that part.

I will say that I was warned. The Foreman told me that the fellow who does their clean-up is also “the concrete guy” and when he gets a job to clean up after a paver deck he’s a bit snippy because he hates the paver decks that are so fashionable now and take money from his pockets (Dude – expand your product offering, how hard is that?!)

So anyway to call him “snippy” is being polite. Since I work from home, when a new crew or workman comes in I can hear and see them from the office and I usually make my way out and say hello. More than anything just to let them know I’m here and see if they need anything or have any questions for me. After that I leave them alone except to snap a few pictures. Most times they are very friendly and polite. This guy however…

I walked out the door onto the deck as he was whipping by in his bobcat and gave him a little wave. He stopped the thing, turned it off and with all the dramatic eye rolling and shoulder flopping that my 9 year old daughter uses to convey just how much pain her mother’s presence causes her said “Is there something you needed?”

I was actually shocked. “No,” I said, “I was just saying hello.” To which he said absolutely nothing, just restarted his Bobcat and went back to work. Ass. Hole.

A few minutes later the aforementioned baby fence guy showed up and he could not have been nicer so he totally made up for the asshat on the Bobcat.  But in the end my yard was graded and all the trash was removed. (Not all, they left some rebarb)

Which seemed like a good thing at the time and actually made me happy. What with all the clean and all but  … there is more to that story later.