When Your Swimming Pool Feels Left Out

About a month ago we woke up to find our swimming pool half drained.  Not the way we wanted to start the day.
Baby girl expressing my feelings of that day-

Since there are no drains in the bottom of our pool and the water levels were below all the inlets, we knew there had to be a hole in the liner somewhere.  And that is exactly what is was.  Apparently in the deep end of the pool a small rip gradually got larger and water continued to trickle through until it pushed away at the underneath structure and rocks.  Eventually it made a path and started draining all of the sudden rapidly.  (Seriously, before this the water level was consistent most of the summer).  The liner, just like a lot of things in our fixer upper property, was on its last leg so I guess these things happen with time.
Pool was seeing all the updates the house was getting, he wanted an update too. (Did mention I am secluded from adults most days, so therefore I humanize random things in close proximity to me, don't judge).

At one point during the 'day of draining' I channeled my inner Katie Ledecky and tried to dive down and patch it.  Keeping myself at the bottom of the pool long enough (I am apparently am quite buoyant) to adhere a patch that has no foundation behind to press against was not an easy task.  Once I did get it applied the patch was quickly sucked through the hole.  Awesome.

The pool drained (and pulled away from the wall once empty) in about 24 hours.  Not lovely.

It typically takes us days to drain halfway for winterizing at the end of the season.  This was a large escape route.

The new liner was installed in one day.  Some structural work had to be done in the area of where the foundation was damaged (I think some new concrete and perlite stone added).
This is me creeping on the pool company, taking his picture from inside the house.

Kids inspecting damaged corner

Ugh.

 We chose a tan colored liner because I thought it would match the neutral concrete pool apron better and give the water a more natural color hue (vs the aqua marine induced hue most liners give).  I did not like any of the border graphic option but that's just how it is.  The one we chose is circled at the bottom left-

We chose to pay and have the pool filled with 'town water' because we worried it would be too taxing on our well with the current drought (though filling with our well would have been free it has been a very dry year).  Plus, our well water is super cold and would have taken longer to warm to a comfortable swimming temp.  The filling part was exciting on different levels-

Tanker trunk in our driveway!

This was only 1 tanker truck's worth, did not even fill 1/2 the pool.

It took 2.5 truck loads to fill the pool.
We were quite shocked not only at how expensive this was but also to see how GREEN town water is (yes, this is straight from the public drinking water, from a nearby town).

Eek!!!!

The delivery guy said it would filter out.  And in two days it did.

We like the faux tile look.  And remember the tile color is actually tan, the water gives it this nice hue.

One day when we get around to finishing the landscaping around the pool it will look really nice.  The barn this fall is taking such funds.

So we HOPE to have another month of enjoying the pool for this season.  It is supposed to be 90's again on Thursday. :)

Did You Say A Retaining Wall??!!!!!!

Get your guitars out.... and sing with me.

Trouble
Trouble, trouble, trouble, trouble
Trouble been doggin' my soul
Since the day I was born

(Trouble, Ray LaMontagne)

This week I had a hardscape material provider come out and look at our pool fence area to give us   suggestions and a quote on materials.  (Last week's post about cleaning up around the pool fence here.)

In keeping trend with the rest of this HOUSE PROJECT (my eye just twitched when I typed that), apparently this pool has more than aesthetic problems.  There are grading (land slope) issues which could lead to structural problems.  Here are some things he pointed out.

First off the obvious, land is eroding out from under the pool apron (the concrete area around the pool).

Such is causing shifts and cracks throughout the apron-

And dropping and breaking of the concrete-

 I never noticed this brick here before, wonder if that was the last owners way of fixing it.

According to the hardscape guy (who isn't a contractor but refers them, he only provides materials) we need a retaining wall all along the back of the fence to stop the eroding.

He even suggested ripping out this section of fence and building a retaining wall for this entire corner. (the gap under the fence here has always worried me, big enough for a toddler to crawl under)-

But wait, there's more.  
He was also concerned with the area adjoining the pool.... the deck and the (once) flower garden.  Since it is right up against the structural mess of a pool he thinks the whole area needs to corrected all at the same time.
In other words, we would need to rip out the entire deck and level out the ground to slope properly with the pool apron (there are structural and drainage reasons here).  It makes sense to me, but the cost to do it is the possible problem.

Granted the deck is pretty much dead (we knew this when we moved in, inspector said it needed to be replaced soon) but that's a project we weren't planning on tackling anytime soon.  

And we thought the guy could just dump off some rocks and we could shovel them in around the fence.  :(   Oh, Trouble...... trouble, trouble, trouble.
Such is the way it is.  We JUST finished paying off the large basement project.
Thoughts anyone?  We plan to get another opinion before we do anything drastic.  Hope there is another and cheaper solution but want to do it right.

A Mess Of A Yard

We not only bought a fixer upper house, we bought a fixer upper yard as well.  I ask myself OFTEN is this worth it?  At times my answer is no, other times I am thankful because working together as a family has many positive benefits.  Besides, idle hands are NOT a good thing.

Its been right about two years now since my parents visited and helped us start clearing the overgrown brush.  Our yard at one time had some lovely landscaping, but it was let go...... I mean off the leash let go.  Stuff was running wild y'all.
This is all weeds-

This past weekend we continued cleaning up around the pool fence in an attempt to make the yard easier to maintain.  Such has been a 3 year effort now.... and we keep failing.... but have high hopes to finally get things in order this year.
The cleared area around the fence still had heavy duty landscaping fabric poking out here and there (and weed seeds and roots imbedded throughout).  Ripping this stuff up was difficult even with the front end loader.

Front end loader was helpful in moving all the dead brush too.

We also pulled up some small trees and moved shrubs to open things up, so the mower can get through more places and less weed eating is needed.

We are not completely sure what to do around this fence area.  Initial idea is to plant grass up to about a foot around the fence and fill the remaining area with white smooth rock.  Then we can mow right up to the edge and can spray the rocky area to kill the weeds.  But rocks might not work since there is a slope?  Mulch is ok but prefer not to have to buy and spread the stuff yearly.  Any suggestions?

Kid involvement as always..... collecting ants..... or taking soil particle samples?

Please share landscaping ideas?  Yet another area I am clueless, *deep breath....

New Window In !!

Every time I walk in my living room I sing about the window, Isn't She Lovely.  (Side note: I did not know Stevie Wonder wrote this song to celebrate the birth of his daughter.  How sweet!)
So lets quickly recap the long journey (seemed long to me anyway) of this installation-
Old window, drafty and sagging-

New window arrived Jan, 11th and hung out with us in the dining room for close to a month-

Thankfully the windows are only the 'eyes of the house' (so they say) and not the ears because we talked mean about both windows most of the time.

New window installation began Monday.  Thankfully we were able to get out of the house during the morning.  Not kid friendly or winter cold/house warm friendly work (it was snowy).  I snapped some pictures before we left-

They noted that quite a few animals had lived in the window.  I had seen remnants of a hornets nest when we removed the trim.  I didn't get a picture of the full nest before they trashed it.  It covered half the area sandwiched inside the windows base.

We were not surprised to hear the OLD window was NOT installed properly (same old news with each repair we get into).  The carpenter seemed to be slightly annoyed at all the small construction details he had to make up for, trying to get everything square.  He was nice though and from what we can tell has done a nice job.

New window installation mostly complete as of today!  They are supposed to come back and tighten the cables a bit and insulate a little more.  We are going to paint it ourselves-

You see that big roll of pink fiber glass insulation.  Little man used it as a drum, did I mention FIBER GLASS.  Fun times as always.

Before from the outside-

And after (still needs some trim work around the siding, they are going to do this)-

Sing with me, Isn't She Lovely.... :)

Jonathan will have to add some drywall to the sides before he frames the window.  The gaps are wider than our trim.  The top and bottom gaps are small enough to hide under the trim thankfully.

Window already being put to use as a race track-

Hopefully I will have my living room back in order soon, they don't seem to mind.... and I don't mind since this room will stay much warmer now... and look nicer. :)

Oh The Timing...

Get your violin out because I am going to get a little whiny.
Last Friday we had a 'dinner guest' dropped off-

Not that I minded the window finally arriving, I was actually glad the window was here and we were seeing progress.  Well that was Friday, this is Wednesday and he is still there.... and large, free standing glass objects and small children are USUALLY not a great mix.
In the engineering world we call this Life Testing, put both kids to attacking the window at the same time would be HALT, Highly Accelerated Life Testing-

Let's go back to Friday night.  Baby girl comes down with the flu.  This does slow her down immensely.  Decreasing the odds of the window getting whacked or the collection of boxes with parts scattered close by from getting ripped open.  I would rather be on defense though, protecting the window, than attacking the flu trying to protect baby girl from pneumonia.

Tuesday morning rolls around, window still intact, along with baby girl feeling some what better.  Kids are sleeping in from some long uncomfortable nights and I am resting a little extra as well.... until... KNOCK, KNOCK.... they're finally here to work on the window.  Whole house immediately wakes up... YAY!  I tell myself it's worth it to get the window done (I am usually an optimistic thinker), but I have to admit, I was not that morning.  I was crabby.... though the workers were very nice.  I watched them and noted in my head everything I didn't approve of (20 minutes chatting in the driveway while they waited for their battery packs to charge on the back deck).  I had little man keep an eye on them too, hammer in hand-

They left before noon time.  The days work was just prep work, removing everything needed to pull out the window-

You can't see it in this picture but under the red siding is the original brown wood siding, about the color of the window frames-

Even Teensy was protesting their timing, turning over their trash bin.  I don't know how she did it but she did.

So they are scheduled to return Monday since today was forecasted, and is, wet and snowy.  I guess all things considered I am ok with this.  Gives us time to recover before they put a huge hole in the side of our house.  Maybe we will all be well enough to go somewhere by then and not have to be in the house.
As far as our health, little man and I now have colds.  Daddy is still going strong (for the record, neither Jonathan nor I had the flu shot.. both kiddos did).  I am lacing our food with as much fresh ginger and garlic as possible.  Actually warm milk, with steeped ginger and sweetened with honey is pretty good and seems to help a sore throat.  Thankfully I have some farm raised hens (from our pig farmer Rick) on hand too and man oh man do they make some yummy broth.  Most flavorful broth I have ever made no doubt, which has made some great soups.
Anyone have any home cold/flu remedies.  Baby girl is too young for most medicines (except pain and fever reducers).  I feel bad that she has to suffer through the symptoms with no help.  I got the humidifier going and mattress inclined to help with chest congestion.  Any others suggestions please share!