RedneckModern

The Pool: From Rendering to Reality (Part-1) // Planning

We were giving a friend a tour of the neighborhood the other day and I was reminded that I've never done a comprehensive, final "pool post". In-part, the delay is because the process was a bit tumultuous — and in-part because there are some things that are left unresolved because of that. That said, we're super-happy with the pool overall — especially in the 100+ degree weather we've been having.

I posted a pool-building-tips post a while back when a friend was planning their own pool — and the first pool we built was fairly well documented. In this post, I'll present an unfettered view of our building process with as little Photoshop as possible. Let's start with the quick before and after:

We started the planning with some pretty extensive plan-drawings that I developed in 2012 when building our first pool. As a graphic designer, I stuck with what I knew — Illustrator. Converting the document to metric, I could make each inch one millimeter and get the measurements razor close.

[This was one of the final renderings looking at options in pool depth. As in all things: best to go slightly bigger than slightly smaller]

Malm fireplace conversion

We were lucky enough to pick up a vintage Malm Zircon-38 fireplace last summer from a house that was doing some demo — that the piece only cost $75 (instead of 10X–20X that price) was the first shocker. Next, the ease of transitioning it to a gas (propane) fired fire-pit was the second one. All in, I think we're at about $500 tops.

When we picked it up (thanks to my friend Bret for the lifting help), we knew it was going to take some TLC. It had been in a mid-century living room for years and was unloved a good bit of that time. Some of the bits were bent and some of the porcelain had chipped off (come to find out, this will be a recurring problem). But, as they say: "it has good bones" and was a perfect candidate for an outside fire-pit/fireplace, so I got to work... It wasn't until the following year, however, that the conversion to a propane fuel source made sense (after the latest CA wildfire, I doubt we'll even light another wood-burning fire. With a pending s'mores-fueled birthday/pool party, it was time to start the project.

[Before and after]