Day One – 11/9/15, they leveled the pool deck, framed the pool and outdoor kitchen.
Day Two must have been a rest day as no work was done other than temporary routing the downspouts away from the holes since there was rain in the forecast.
Day Three: Rebar and all plumbing, hopefully all inspections tomorrow and Gunite on Friday.
Outdoor Kitchen framed and rebar. This is the footing that the bar and kitchen will be built on.
Shows how deep and the tall rebar will be bent over and tied into the pool deck. It is all wired together and grounded for safety.
Working on the pool drain, standing next to the waterfall.
Day 4: nothing happened
Day 5: Both gas lines were thrench in One for the pool heater, one for the outdoor grill.
Pretty cool how they leave pressure gauges on each run until it passes inspections for NO leaks. They did the same thing with the pool plumbings.
Day 6 rain:
Day 7 major Storm. It was still dark when I left for work, so a neighbor snapped off some photos while I was at work. I am guessing a good two feet of water.
4:30 PM same day after work, they had the hole pretty much pumped dry, some slight cave in, but will be cleaned up by hand tomorrow. The plan is inspection #2, then gunite maybe Thursday or Friday.
Day 9 11/18/15 Let the manual hand clean-up of the cave in begin.
Shows just had deep and wide the cave in was. Good news the Gunite is 2 foot thick over there. 🙂
Day 16 11/25/15 – Gunite Day! The gunite comes off the material truck dry and they mixed at the nozzle with water.
Then the finish guys cut, trowel level the shell out.
They had some pretty cool special tools, giant knife to cut the gunite.
The entry steps and bench
Covering up the last of the rebar frame. 4 and 1/2 trucks.
Shooting the footing for the kitchen and the retaining wall.
Equipment pad
Clean-up crew comes back in a couple days to take the forms off and to pick up trash.
I think it is looking really good!
Day 17 11/26/15, Thanksgiving Day. I get to water down the gunite twice a day for the next Seven days.
Day 18 11/27/15 – rained all day, no watering needed.
Day 19 11/28/15 – Stormed all day, no watering needed.
Day 24 12/1/15 – Tile and Equipment.
Trenching in and hooking up all the pool plumbing.
Setting the Equipment
Backfilling the plumbing
Then they put a level fiberboard everywhere the title goes and leveled and squared out the pool wall.
Hooked up all the plumbing to the equipment.
Sitting and leveling the pool tiles
Day 29 12/7/15 – The Oklahoma Flagstone was dropped off.
Day 30 12/8/15 – Setting the pool coping (Oklahoma Flagstone).
The kitchen is taking shape
The pool coping is made out of hand cut / shaped Oklahoma Flagstone
I am really digging the color choices we picked out.
Day 31 12/9/15 – Adding stone to the Kitchen.
I am really digging the stone pattern to match the stone work on the house.
Boring under the driveway. They have to tie the drain lines into the city storm sewer.
Day 37 12/14/15 – Starting to set the boulders for the waterfall and water features.
Setting each boulder by hand, some weighing as much 400 pounds. The first layer of boulders is about 16 to 18 inches. The waterfall will be 48 inches, so about 1/3 done with the boulders.
Closeup of the tile and the Oklahoma Flagstone coping.
Had my mud boots on and I have been missing shoveling snow, so I scoped some mud while they had the rain water pumped down.
The boulder wall is really starting to take shape.
Day 41 12/18/15 – The table rock waterfall rock was delivered and set.
The 8 X 8 cedar post were sit.
The said the table rock was more than One TON! (2,000 lbs)
Day 46 12/24/15 Counter tops
Cutting the countertops. I went with Chocolate Leuders slabs.
The right side weeping wall is done.
Counter top is looking awesome. I thought I would be first to dance on it, but the masons were already standing on it as the notch in the outlets.
Day 66 01/12/16 Pool Deck Fill
Between Christmas and New Years not much work was done, then we we got back home from Christmas break of course 3 days of rain. We are getting close.
Front of the finished Bar side of the kitchen. Digging the hand chiseled supports!
Waterfall and both weeping walls on either side of the falls done.
They dumped 10 tons of road pack crushed rock, laid down a three inch layer then machine tamp and level. They said 3 loads of gravel and one more load of sand before the walnut Travertine pavers /tiles will be laid.
Day 69 01/15/16 Pool Decking
On top of the 8″ of road pack went 3 to 5 inches of sand and vibrated smooth with this machine.
There are 6 drains in the pool deck and the deck has a slight slope into each drain.
Each paver is then trimmed in around the edges of the house and the outdoor kitchen. Looked scary, but these guys knew what they were doing.
What do you think? Hoping the pool deck is big enough for parties and Happy Hours!
They used a piece of flexible sprinkler line to hand draw the arcs and curve to match the pool for the landscaping and flowerbeds.
Final herringbone pattern
Day 87 02/02/16 Final Pool cleanup and backfill and final grade
Kitchen is Done!
Sharon couldn’t wait anymore and the patio furniture made it out of the garage.
Day 96 02/11/16 Pebble Tech!
They made a really cool rope web over the pool to hang their tools on and to keep the hoses out of the finished Pebble Tech. The walked on boots with steel golf spikes to not leave footprints.
Then after the Pebble Tech was sprayed on, it was hand finished with trowels. 
I was gone for 11 days on a work trip during which time the acid washed the Pebble Tech and filled the pool. The acid wash really brought out the colored pebbles in the Pebble Tech! Our final color palette.
Day 108 02/23/16 Landscaping Starts
The Texas Windmill Palms arrived. The featured palm is over 15 feet tall.
All plants are planted and the waterfall is on.
My Neighbor got a new drone and he took some ariel photos for me.
I think all we have left is some more landscape rock, 4 Red Honeysuckles when they come in and couple pallets of sod to fix the yard.
I’ll photograph the finished project once the landscaping is finished.
Album of pool construction:
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A look back at how different the Illinois pool was put in: Illinois Pool Construction