It is an absolutely beautiful swimming pool, and I was imagining just being there and swimming in it when I looked at your picture. This is the place that you sold, right , or do you still have it ?
@Beth Gallagher When my first wife & I built our nice custom home in Vegas, as newcomers (relatively), a big in-ground pool was deemed a "must". 20 X 40 feet, 10 feet deep, the cost was $12,000 that being in late 1973. A gas-fired pool heater was included, which required installation of a 300 gallon propane tank. The big square red-parapetted house in upper left was doughnut-shaped, with pool in the middle, owned by the Osmonds. My lady & her younger sister, languishing by the completed pool, before I finished the landscaping around it: Diane, her sister, with the cats: I spread two truckloads of top soil, 40 tons, by hand, and planted Tifgreen Bermuda grass around the pool, 5000 square feet of it.
No we still have it Yvonne... we did put it on the market , but due to the uncertainty of Brexit, we weren't getting the offers we needed, so we took it off again. Now that we're clear we're leaving the EU, we'll put it back on again this autumn
What a stately home you had. I never heard of Bermuda grass but since the climate over here is becoming Sahelian it might be an idea to plant it here as well. Mine looks like this and summer is just four weeks old with 104F expected throughout the week.
Very nice, Frank. We had our pool replastered a couple of years ago, but that's the only significant expense in 23 years. My husband is quite handy and has rebuilt the pump several times; he also replaces the fins inside the large filter thing every couple of years. Here's the replaster in progress... With the new plaster and tile, I had a couple of tile turtles put in the bottom of the pool...
So far I have seen ONLY ONE ABOVE GROUND POOL...Frank Sanoica's. I didn't entitle this thread "In Ground Pools". Harry
@Holly Saunders A reasonable question, to be sure. My wife would certainly love it, and our frost-free climate recommends it. Las Vegas is somewhat colder than here, in winter. I vowed long ago, that to entertain having another "real" pool, it would necessarily be enclosed in some way. Where winds blow nearly incessantly, here for example, or Vegas, it is a constant struggle to keep a pool clean. Plus, the insects. Plus the requirement for adequate fence protection. Frank
@Thomas Stearn Natural Bermuda Grass is a very hearty, invasive kind of grass, which is pervasive throughout the Desert Southwest. The seed is very fine, and is carried by the wind extensively. Thus, a piece of Desert ground watered perhaps once a week soon sports a "fur" of Bermuda Grass. This past April, due to intense Spring rains, our entire area had a several-weeks long coating of green! The Bermuda Grass used in landscaping is hybridized, and spreads by means of Stolons, which are sprigs of root and grass. In fact, I planted Stolons by "broadcasting" them, as it's called. Bermuda will wipe out any other plant form, trying to grow with it. There are many hybrids available; I used Tifgreen. Beware, however, that Bermuda needs extreme heat, little water, and dies out completely, turning brown, when overnight temperatures drop below 50 degrees. For this reason, the resorts out here, and golf courses, "overseed" their Bermuda in Fall & Winter with Rye Grass. Then, it's green all year 'round. Here is a view of the front of our Vegas house:
@Beth Gallagher Nice! The top view is the deep end? With a little shelf built-in. Ours was "Grecian" shape, same as yours, but with an added in-ward curving "kick" at the 4 corners, 20 X 40 feet, plenty large for me! I never saw a re-plastering in progress before, thank you! Frank
Actually, our pool is called a "sport pool" and is shallow at both ends; deepest in the middle. All our kids loved playing volleyball or badminton so this was the solution for us. That shelf on one end is called a "tanning shelf" or something like that. It's more of a seat, plus there is a fountain that attaches to the outlet above it. There are built-in places in the concrete deck for sport nets.