Pool Party - Spray paint and bushes

A couple weeks after we signed the pool contract, I came home to find a young guy lurking on my front lawn, tagging the grass with a can of spray paint. He tells me the pool company sent him to mark utility lines. Or maybe he was really a well-dressed, polite gang member whose gang symbols were short, multi-colored lines. Either way, there was celebration at the Sullivan house that night because of the spray paint all over our yard. Hopefully it meant a pool was imminent. Or maybe we were about to be in the middle of a gang war. Either way, out yard would soon be trashed.

A week later, there was still no pool, but miraculously the lines on the lawn had multiplied. More lines, more colors, going in more random directions. How many utilities could really be running from our house to the street? Cable, electric, water, sewer in blue, green, yellow, and red. But what's the story with all these other strange colors and shapes? What do purple circles represent? And was that an aquamarine rectangle?

 

In addition to the vagaries of utility lines, the other problem that was bugging me was a large bush in the middle of the spot where the pool was going to be built. This thing was at least eight feet tall and six across, so it was too huge for me to just transplant it with my little garden trowel. It might have been a magnolia or some other such Southern flowering shrub. It's impossible to keep the different types straight. Anyway, it was pretty and it had white flowers and it smelled good and it was healthy and hadn't done anything to me, so I wanted it protected.

I contacted a landscaper to come move it, but he never called me back. Plus, we were already spending a pantload of money on the pool, so spending more to move foliage felt extravagant. So every time I looked out in the yard, seeing that pretty, doomed bush made me sad. What would the pool guys do with it on digging day? Surely they wouldn't just run it over with the excavator, right? So, could they move it? I vowed to pester the construction team about it the moment they showed up at my house to install the pool. And I can do a lot of pestering.

David the Pool Guy

Last time, we took a trip to the pool store to consult the professionals about whether we could actually put a pool in our little backyard. We asked the kid some questions, and his answers were essentially, "You'll have to ask David." Apparently David is the guy who actually builds the pools. The pool store mostly sells chemicals and floating noodles, while David is the man who gets you to the point where you need chemicals and noodles. David is never actually at the store. He works mostly in his truck, from what I could tell. We were given his card.

My husband called David on Monday and arranged for him to come out to the house. He needed to tell us if our yard was large enough and flat enough for a pool and whether our gate was wide enough to allow the huge earth-moving equipment through.

Elliott pondering the pre-pool yard.

David showed up a couple weeks later. Our yard is fine. He said we might need a retaining wall unless we were willing to let them distribute a pant-load (technical term to measure large amounts of messy stuff) of dirt that will be dug out of the hole that will eventually become a pool. I was not willing to lose ALL my grass to this adventure, so retaining wall it will be. The gate into our yard might be wide enough for the excavator, but if not, they can take down a little of the fence on either side of the gate and replace it when the project is done. It would not affect our neighbor's fence, according to David. That would have been a deal breaker.

David gave us an estimate of approximately $965 billion dollars to build a 12 X 24 foot vinyl salt water pool. That included "free" start-up chemicals, courtesy of the pool store. Like drug dealers, they know that if they get you hooked with a freebee the first time, you'll keep coming back for more.

My husband said the multi-billion dollar quote seemed fair. He really wanted the pool, and the fact that it cost more than an aircraft carrier was irrelevant. He also wanted it immediately so he could swim for at least the second half of this summer. 

I asked David if the massive price tag was correct, considering that 12 X 24 is about the smallest in-ground pool in existence. David pondered the paper copy for a moment then said, "Oh, I did make a mistake! I forgot to add in the retaining wall. That could be anywhere from an extra $50 million up to $2 billion. We'll have to wait and see." Thanks, David! Way to be a team player.

So my husband signed us up, we gave the man a pant-load of money for a deposit, and David promised to get the pool ball rolling. He said that once they got the necessary permits, they could start by the end of the month. It would take six weeks, weather permitting. Hilarious. I came to learn that David has a really twisted sense of humor.

Next time: Preparing for Digging Day.