Several years ago we built our house.

We had never built a house prior to this one. We learned a lot along the way.

What we learned helped birthed the portion of Highland Home Design Company that offers design assistance for client’s who are building new homes. To date we have walked and are walking the custom home build process with five clients. Honestly, new construction and selection of design finishes are some favorite parts of what we do.

With that said, a year ago, we embarked on having a pool built in our backyard.

Prior to this experience, we had never built a pool.

If I’m honest building a pool felt scarier to me than building a house.

I am sure a lot has to do with the fact that we have never had a pool and our pool was built post pandemic, which means materials take a lot longer to arrive on site.

We polled a ton of friends, family, neighbors and acquaintances about having a pool at their home.

Can I tell you not one single person said, “It was the worst decision we ever made.”

In fact, every single person said, “It was the best decision we made for our family.” ” You are going to love it.”

So after lots of questions, researching various pool companies who build in our area and going to see several finished pools, we took the plunge.

Here are the details of our pool:

Our home is on septic tank and the drain lines are right off the back porch of our home. We were not up for paying thousands of dollars to move the drain lines just to have a pool right off our porch.

We opted to put our pool in the middle of our backyard.

I will say I love not having water from a pool right in our back door.

As I write this post, I am sitting on our back porch enjoying a dry spot and 8 girls are out in the pool for my daughter’s 13th birthday party.

We chose to build a pool and a spa all in the same space.

This helps to cut down on the amount of grass in the spa and allows people to freely move from pool to spa and vise versa.

We questioned whether we would really walk out into the middle of our backyard during the Winter to get in the spa. Can I tell you, after a year of having a spa by our pool, there was no hesitation from anyone in our family about taking a few steps to the hot spa on cold nights.

Our pool is a concrete pool with a pebble spray finish. The dimensions are 18 ft x 36 ft with a 6ftx12ft swim deck and a 9ft x 9ft spa.

The shallow end is 3ft progressing to an 8ft deep end. My husband didn’t really want a deep end, but let’s be honest, we have 4 kids. There are often a lot of people in our pool and I wanted to know that anyone diving would be safe.

The three fountain rock wall at the deep end provides enough space for all kids to jump off at once. They have had the best time doing this.

For those of you wanting to know about design finishes here is what we chose:

Pebble Finish: Stonescapes Mini-Pebbles in the color Caribbean Blue

Water Line Tile: 6×6 Simulated Quartzite in Gray

Coping: Blue Stone with non-beveled edge

Spa and Fountain Rock: Gray travertine 2″ x 4″

Pool Decking: Brushed Concrete

Almost a year later, I would go through the process again to have a pool in our backyard. Our family gravitates to this space. We enjoy time with friends and family here. We eat out less and cook more when the pool is open. We relax multiple times a week in the spa. And when the weather isn’t perfect in Georgia, we use the spa as a mini-pool by heating it up and enjoying the warm water.

I think building a pool is a lot like building a home. There are setbacks, there are missed deadlines with supplies, and there are hiccups along the way. But hopefully in the end, the finished product will be a place of rest, peace, relaxation, friendship, family and a chance to slow from the busy of life.

If I were to give you any advice it would be this:

Do your homework on multiple pool companies

Talk to people who have built pools with the pool companies you are interested in using

Go see finished pools and spas by the pool company

Know if your pool builder is giving you a turn key pool or if you will be required to schedule and lineup contractors for landscaping, electricity, and natural gas or propane.

Sign a detailed contract complete with a warranty

If you have any questions feel free to reach out to me by email

thehighlandhome@gmail.com

We are still learning so much when it comes to all things pool, but as always, I am happy to answer any questions that I can to help you along in your journey.

If you are interested in seeing more photos and videos of this space, be sure to follow long over on Instagram

Thanks for following along.