If you missed the planning and funding phase, you can find that post here. This post is going to cover what happened after we decided to move forward with our pool builder and scheduled our design meeting. It’s short and sweet as it didn’t really involve too much.

Before I start, if you’re thinking of getting a pool, make sure to do your research and find a reputable builder. One that can provide lots of reviews and doesn’t require your money to start the project. I’ve read a lot of horror stories of pool installs that were halted mid project because the builder couldn’t source materials or they weren’t the best as far as workmanship. Our payments are on a set schedule and I’ll get to that in a bit.

After our initial consultation at the house, we scheduled our design meeting. This required a $1,000 deposit before scheduling. This ensures they move forward with folks who are truly interested and that they don’t waste time creating a rendering. If we didn’t move forward we would forfeit the fee and if we did, it would be applied toward the final pool cost.

With the whole family in tow, we headed to the showroom to see our pool design. This isn’t something that most builders offer. Some will only provide the building specs and paperwork for you to sign off on. We got this very accurate rendering of our backyard with our pool:

Pretty cool and maybe a little creepy, ha! It’s all to scale and is exactly what our backyard should look like when it’s all said and done. Minus the flowers and shrubs because the landscaping is not included in the pool build. They even included a fire pit because I wanted to see what it would look like in that spot. The basketball hoop has already been relocated to the garage and we decided to put the pergola over next to the pool instead of the patio.

We were able to make on the spot decisions at the meeting and left with a finalized plan. Our original dig date was scheduled for November but because we had to move our design meeting back a month, our dig was moved back to June! Crazy, how that pushed everything back but everyone decided to get a pool installed during the height of the pandemic.

We left with these design photos and a huge posterboard that is currently in our room propped up against the wall. We were also told that closer to our dig date, someone would be in contact with us to cover next steps. It was kind of nerve wracking since it was August and we wouldn’t have anything happen for almost a year! However, June was here before we knew it.

Next post will cover dig day all the way up to where we currently are. If you have any questions for me, please let me know below!