Home Improvement
I'm going to talk about something quite frivolous. Nothing serious as some of my fellow Posse members have done. This is about the pitfalls of home improvement. The picture on the left will make sense after you read my blog.About a year ago I mentioned to my husband that it would be nice to have a hot tub. We could put it on the our screened porch and use it to soak away some of those aches and pains we get from time to time now that we are getting a little older. We won't say how old. Instead of going with my idea, my husband decided we should have a swimming pool as well.
To begin the process we had several people come to the house to give us an estimate. One guy never even got back to us. After we finally settled on a company to put in our pool, we had one big obstacle to overcome. The area at the back of our house where we wanted to put the pool is in an easement for the golf course that backs up to our house. We had to get a variance on the easement. This involved filing a lot of papers and writing a check to the city for about $750. Not only did this involve money but also six weeks of waiting until the planning commission had their next meeting. We had started getting estimates at the beginning of March The meeting would take place at the end of July. So the idea of a pool for the summer was gone.
The day of the meeting finally arrived. We went, hoping they would allow us to put in our pool. We were the only ones on the agenda, but we were there for nearly an hour while the commissioners wrangled about the codes regarding our property. During the meeting it came to the attention of one of the commission members that our house was in violation of the set backs from the porperty lines in our neighborhood. What should we do about that? Not to worry. Sometime in the future the codes will all be changed so the houses in our neighborhood will be in compliance. Why do we have a planning commission if they don't follow their own codes? Thankfully, they didn't ask us to tear down our house, and they approved our application for the variance. We could build our pool.
Next on our agenda. Getting a permit to build the pool, which would take about three weeks. So at the end of August prepartion for our pool began. We had to clear the land of palmettos, bushes and trees. They dug the hole, put in the iron frame and shot concrete in the hole to form the walls of the pool and hot tub. WOW! Things were moving right along. I was already feeling the warm water of that hot tub.
We spent days looking at pavers for the pool deck without much success. Nothing looked good to us. Finally, we settled on something we thought we would like. Who can tell from a three-foot square sample what a whole pool deck would look like? Not us. We just hoped we had made the right decision. The pavers would be ready in about two or three weeks. So what were we looking at now? Maybe getting to swim in October.
We tore down the old screened porch to make way for the pavers and the new screen that would enclose the porch and the pool area. Now my kitties couldn't go out on the screened porch and chat with the squirrels. The cats didn't understand why they had lost their porch privileges. Over the next few weeks in a slow progression, we saw plumbers, electricians , tile guys and paver guys all doing their little part. October came and went and still no pool or hot tub. Last week they finished putting up the new screen to hopefully keep out the mosquitoes and no-see-ums. And the kitties can go back on the porch, but they aren't too sure about their new space. But still the pool is not finished. We need a handrail for the steps and have discovered that might take two or three weeks to get. They can't put the inside finish on the pool until the handrail is there. So we wait.
I had jokingly said to someone that we might be able to use our hot tub at Christmas. That's beginning to look more and more like the truth. Next month when it's my turn to blog again, I'll let you know whether I've been able to sit in that hot tub. That's all I really wanted.
posted by Merrillee @ 2:08 AM
2 Comments:
Merrillee, your pool looks great! It looks like it will be worth the trouble. Have fun in your hot tub.
Man, don't home improvements just always take more time than we expect? Hope you get to get in your hot tub soon. Funny how you're putting a pull in and we took ours out.
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