Take A Dip In Our Pool Remodel!

Many people remodel rooms in their homes, but have you ever remodeled a pool? We knew when we purchased our home that a pool remodel was going to be first thing if we wanted to swim by summer. In today’s post, I’m going to show you all of the steps, choices and before & afters of our Pool Remodel.

Want to read more about our Total Home Makeover remodel? Check out our My Home Makeover Page where you can click on any room in our home to see what we’ve done so far.

The Pool Before

This looks like a Summer paradise, right? Yikes!

When we bought this house, the pool was gross. It was not well maintained. It was green and was in desperate need of resurfacing with new plaster. The waterline tile was nasty and outdated, and the equipment was ancient. We had a heater that looked like this:

That about sums up the state of the pool upon move-in.

I was never putting a toe in that pool as long as it was like that.  We knew when we purchased the house that a pool remodel including resurfacing and repairing the pool was one of the top priorities. It’s hot here in Texas in the summer, and the pool gives us a place to relax and unwind with the kids.

The Pool Problems

Our home inspector hired a pool inspector to take a look at the pool and make a list of needed repairs. The pool inspector he hired happened to be our trusted pool repair GUY! It was a total coincidence, but it made me feel so much better about the findings. I knew I could trust him.

There was a long list of repairs for our pool remodel, so we got started right away.

About a week after we moved in, we had the pool drained so that we could get it resurfaced. The original plaster had been painted white, a big no no, and it had to be completely sanded down. That cost us about $400 extra. The old blue & brown tile was chipped off and outdated. We also had to replace most of the equipment. This was not going to be cheap.

So let’s get on with the pool remodel!

The Waterline Tile

After that was all done, we got to do the fun stuff in the pool remodel– the choices!! The tile choice was fairly easy. I’d been pinning glass mosaics for a while on Pinterest. I love how resorts use glass mosaics in their pools for water line tile, and we found a great option with some iridescence at Lowe’s of all places!

This mosaic glass tile was $11.96 a square foot, and we used our 10% off moving coupon to get it down around $10.50 a square foot. We needed 80 linear feet at 6″ wide, which was 40 square feet of tile, so that was a big savings!

Our tile looks like its no longer available online, but I found some similar versions without the iridescence here.

Love that sparkle!  I love the navy and different blues of the tiles, and when the sun shines on it, there are these cool greens, purples and yellows that pop! I just love it!

The Quartz

Our new house is on a creek, and we have very tall 40-50 foot Ash, Red Oak, and Hackberry trees. So. Much. Shade. We decided we wanted to concentrate on ways to retain heat, since our pool was going to be in full shade in the late afternoon hours.

There are three price points on pool resurfacing materials from cheapest to most expensive: basic plaster, quartz, or Pebble Tec. We had pretty much decided on the quartz plaster – an upgrade from the previous plaster. Quartz is middle ground on price and lifetime, lasting around 10-15 years.

Our quartz is Caspian Sea, which is a cool grey color. I decided that I wanted one strip of the waterline tile along each step, and I just love the way it looks. It’s simple and modern. Exactly what we wanted in our pool remodel.

With the water in the pool, it looks dark grey/blue, kind of like a lagoon. It looks great with the tile.

The Heater

One of the other upgrades we chose to spend money during the pool remodel was the heater. We had to replace the heater, so we decided to go with a Heat Pump instead. The Heat Pump is double what a heater costs, but it is much cheaper to run. Our pool guy said its about $.04 cents per hour vs $.80 an hour.  

The heat pump runs off of electricity instead of natural gas, and it works like an air conditioner. We set a temperature of 85 degrees, and the heater will pop on when it needs to maintain the temp. But, it will only heat up 10 degrees. This was a great option for us, since we do not have a spa at this house. We don’t really have a need to heat from 40 degrees to 100, like you do with a spa.  This is just enough to give us a few extra weeks to the season on either end.

The Pool Cleaner

We swapped out the old pool sweep for a brand new Polaris 280 in black. We had a blue and white one at the old house that we named “Po”, so this one is “Black Po 2.0”. He’s pretty stealth!

The Party Pool Light

Another component that we chose to upgrade during the pool remodel was the pool light. Swapping out old incandescent lights to LED has been a project all over the house, and the pool is no exception.

We decided to spend a little bit more on some “wow factor” and we went with a color-changing LED light. This light allows us to choose from about 8 different colors and light shows, and can color-code or theme our swims!  I even sent in the purchase for a rebate with our electric company!

The Smart Pool Controller

All of these upgrades are now controlled by our iPhones, because we had an iAqualink pool controller installed! The pool didn’t have any sort of system to control everything from inside the house, and that was something that we really liked in our old house. It was a little expensive, but it was so worth it.

We can control the pool temp, light color/show, vacuum and more right from our smartphones or tablets from anywhere. It’s really handy, and its nice that we don’t have to have a large control panel an inside wall like we used to.

The Budget

This pool remodel was not a cheap project. We had originally thought it would be about $8,500 for all basic stuff, and we probably ended up spending close to $15,000 because we decided to bite the bullet and upgrade things now. Part of the difference were the additional expenses for the Heat Pump, the Quartz, the Pool Light and the iAqualink. That stuff isn’t cheap.

However, we now have a pool that doesn’t leak, and is fairly energy efficient. We’ll probably have to replace the pump in a few years, but hopefully, not any time soon.  ~We just replaced the pump in June 2020. 

The Finished Pool Remodel

Here’s some more after pics:

What do you think of our pool remodel? Want to take a dip? I love this pool! It’s the centerpiece of our yard, and now it’s a place that we love to sit by and spend time as a family. My favorite part is the tile. I love the colors and how they change in the sun!

Want to see what we’ve done to the space since this post was written? Check out the 2020 Summer Spaces Blog Hop that I participated in for updated photos! We still have more plans for this backyard, so make sure you’re following me on Instagram for the latest updates!

Have you ever done a pool remodel before?  What choices did you end up with?  Did you do any upgrades?  Tell us about it in the comments!

Check out all of the Stacy’s Savings Total Home Makeover posts here!