By Davan 
childhood poolside lessons to DIY upgrades, it’s been a journey of laughter, love, and a whole lot of trial and error. Here’s to building memories, one splash at a time.
All the judgey people in here I swear. I’ve had pools since I was 10 years old…no I didn’t buy it but I for sure had to be my dads right hand man in installing tose old school hard side pools. Leveling, getting the walls in tracks, stretching the liner in just right. Us kids walking around and smoothing out the wrinkles. Lots of dad swearing and us kids being totally over it…..And after that my dad walked away and us kids were responsible for upkeep. Back then, my dad made decent money, didn’t know better, drained it all the way down and if it survived the Iowa winter we filled her back up with well water. If not he bought a new one and we started over. We ran the 100′ of extension chord to run our tiny little media filter…that we used one cartridge all year long…we just pulled it out power washed it and put it back in. We had the liquid chemical testers and probably used the same set for 10+ years….we hardly tested the water unless we were bored. We skimmed everyday with a net, scrubbed the walls and floor with a brush. We never covered or had a solar cover….We never used shock, we had a chlorine tablet floater and if the stuff started turning green we put more tabs in and us girls got in the pool and ran in circles to circulate it! We kept it simple, enjoyed our pool, and if dad came home and we were swimming in a pool we didn’t skim or scrub we were grounded from it until we got it clean again!
30+years later my husband and I have a soft side, 20×48 summer waves pool…I’ve put up on my own twice….so easy…we are 1.5 inches unlevel but it’s fine….we have learned we love our sand filter and saltwater system and we drain past the holes and leave up all winter. We hated the giant skimmer box that’s way too low on the pool so figured out how to pull the pump out and permanently plug that hole. We ran PVC pipe and valves to shut off at the inlet, outlet, and backwash, a separate pipe for the vacuum….to have a skimmer, an inlet robot vac, a $10 pool vac that dispenses into the filter….my husband is an electrician and is DYING to get rid of the extension chord…:not so worried about the rest.
We’ve had fun with pool lights, and floating pool fountains that we found out suck…making solar cover hooks, pvc pipe floatie holder/towel rack.
Guys…it’s just been fun to learn and figure out what works for us! We have goals…but I guess it’s the redneck girl in me…we aren’t ready to spend an arm and a leg….maybe someday! We kind of figure out what to do together to make it better little by little every year! It’s cheaper than marriage counseling and even though we may ALMOST get divorced once a summer we always come up with some awesomeness! Don’t stress too much about making things perfect and enjoy!
On that note…we have taken in my 73 year old sweet auntie. She has an awesome “mother in law suite” with a bedroom, living room and private bathroom in our house. Now we are trying to figure out an easy and safe way for her to enjoy our pool. My husband works at a railroad and they get these amazing solid topped pallets so we are using this pic as inspiration! Wish us luck, love, plenty of beers and happy swimming Auntie soon!