Sleeping With the Fishes

The end of an era... The Goings pool is no more. Here is a pic of the pool two summers ago, all nice and blue and $$hundreds$$ of dollars worth of getting there from the black sludge that used to lurk within when we first bought our house.

Every summer, it has continued to be $$hundreds$$ of dollars worth of beautifying it from the winter nasties to the summer swimmies. Not to mention the electric and water bills every summer from running the pump and filling it little by little over the months when people splash and such. We were constantly filling that thing. I'm confident the water that was in there recently was not the original water it had once contained.

But the thing is just so *ugly*. An eyesore, really. DH wanted to paint the sheet metal white, to make it a little more "friendly" to the backyard, but even so, it was covered 7 to 8 months out of the year, just sitting there not being used. Not to mention the big tree that overhangs the pool eventually dropped its leaves into the water every fall.

In short - an above-ground Dough Boy pool = no fun in Oregon. A below-ground pool with a heater in a covered lanai is another story altogether. But alas, we didn't have that. After we had our deck rebuilt, we had to take out the firepit the previous owners had built in. We were saddened, as many a happy time had been had around the firepit.

Therefore, in the middle of our yard, we are going to rebuild it - correctly this time - with bricks and mortar in a covered pagota with patio furniture and cobbled concrete - not "just"a slab. It's pretty much gonna rule.

So today, we disassembled this pool. Since we had just uncovered it from winter, the water was funkytown. Over the past week, we've been draining it - wasn't that horrible as the water pretty much soaked into the ground and didn't flood the yard like we thought it might. Then we hired a guy to come and help us cut up the sheet metal with a "saws all" and we cut up the liner into small pieces. Someone from Craig's List is coming by later today to pick up the scrap metal and aluminum.

This pool was 24ft. Having it gone from our backyard makes our yard that much more HUGE! Having a new firepit is exciting! I can't wait to have it again, as we'd spent many a night out there yakkin' around the bonfire. Now, it's going to be so much BETTER!

Goodbye, pain in the ass pool! Hello big-ass backyard!

~~Becka