The pool is DONE, and the gardens look awesome!

Robert and I arrived in Hawaii early December. Since then we broke ground on the new pool,  set it up and filled it with water, and completed the deck around it. Contractor Eric Knowlton and his two helpers Ed and Nohea did a masterful job with the pool, deck and steps, finishing just in time for Robert's birthday and pool party we had on January 10! I've been busy hiking, swimming, and weeding and haven't had time to update the blog. Today we had a brilliant double rainbow behind the pool. That gave me the perfect shots to finally publish this latest edition on the pool.

Our friends who have pools told us that you'll love it and hate it. I already know what they mean. The OEM sand filter supplied with the pool never worked well, then it completely failed. I bought one via Amazon, and it's headed out via boat. Our pool equipment guy Kevin McGuire was nice enough to lend us his spare pump, thank goodness. The water was starting to turn a not so nice shade of green without a pump working. It all takes time to get it to a "steady state"... then it should be a breeze. Fingers crossed!

Meanwhile Robert has started a new garden area around the pool. He also bought new planters and some great plants to adorn the pool and the new garden. Everyone's favorite are the lipstick palms that add a bright splash of red to the color palette.

As always, there are photos of the pool project accompanied by some from our garden, and Robert's birthday party. Aloha!

The final project for this year is landscape lighting. That will be the next blog.

This morning's double rainbow

Perfect morning light today

Now we're back to building the pool for the next few shots...

Nohea freezing cold as he installs the rope lights with Ed's help

Night lights

Eric Knowlton, the contractor, working on the deck

Trenching for landscape lighting- Mica'el on the left

Stewart trenching for landscape lighting

Ed sanding the deck rails

Building the steps from the deck to the lawn

Robert and Stewart making the poolside garden

Nohea sparking up the lawn while cutting the material for railings

Robert's birthday party

Eric and Amber enjoying the pool he completed for us

Now for some garden shots...

Chris weeding along the vireya trail

Riley helping weed the vireya trail

Me with vireyas

Unretouched photo of Hula Girl hibiscus flower

The lava shelf with orchids abloom

My handsome husband by the entrance to the courtyard garden

Testing the waters as the pool is being built

In nine quick days since the first blog about our new pool, the foundation was leveled and the pool set up last week. Earlier this week a concrete wall was built in front of the pool to prevent erosion and provide support for the pool frame. We added 14,500 gallons of water on Saturday, and have been swimming daily since then.

The deck supports are complete. Today our contractor Eric Knowlton and his crew started on the  decking which will embrace the pool on three sides. The ocean side will be a "faux infinity edge" (no water falls over it, that would be too much of a drain on our solar system). It's perfect for propping your elbows on from the water while you gaze at the Pacific in the distance!

Our house is completely offgrid, so the pool is as well. We doubled the capacity of our solar system to accommodate the new poolwater pump, and to give us more spare amps for the house. Our original solar contractor Jeremiah Augustine from Lightworkers Electric upgraded us by switching 8 new batteries out for the 8 original ones. The new technology gives us twice the amps with the same number of batteries, and for less cost than the original, lower capacity ones.

As all this pool work has been progressing, we've also been tending to the 11+ acres of jungle and gardens around the house. Despite predictions of a long drought starting in December, we've had our usual multiple rainstorms pretty much daily. We can watch the rain clouds gather over the Pacific then roll toward our house, soak the new plants (and us if we're in the garden), and then look for rainbows as the rain recedes. We get 120 inches (300 cm) of rain per year. It rarely rains for long periods of time, so we welcome the nourishing water for the plants.

Here are a few photos of the pool construction, then a brief video of the water being added, and some garden shots as well. Enjoy!

Me supervising, it's very hard work!

It takes a lot of workers to build a pool!

Making sure the foundation is perfectly level

The pool laid out, ready to be lifted onto the frame supports

Aaron the electrician pointing to where the switch for the pool perimeter rope lights will go

Tammy delivered 3 and 1/2 truckloads of water. She's pictured with Ricky White, Eric Knowlton, and Nohea.

Adding salt to make the pool a saltwater pool.
It's deceptively low tech to manage once it gets to steady state. 

Today, adding the first part of the Trex decking. Nohea and Ed. 

Kevin McGuire, our pool systems guy, working on the saltwater pump

The house and master suite through the new garden we planted only in January this year. 

The jungle pavilion built by menehunes, well really by Eric, while Robert and I were back in NY.
Note the posts made from the same Ohi'a trees that are the predominant tree on our land. 

Master suite from the new garden

Queen Emma lily, a reliable bloomer

Robert about to go in the pool for the first swim. 

Native flowering plant. 

Ti plant leaves aglow with red and green. 

Another good omen, a praying mantis took up residence shortly after we erected the pool. 

Bitter melon, an obnoxious but pretty weed,  alongside sapphire showers bush

Sunrise today

Double rainbow between our main house and the master suite

From Plan to Plunge in Four Weeks: Adding a Pool to our HI Home

It's been a while since I posted, here's a short recap. Robert Welsch and I bought our 11 acres in HI in 2005. We started planting the landscaping in 2007 and 2008. And in 2014, we started, finished and moved into our new home right before New Years. We enjoyed living in it all Winter 2015, then returned to NY from March until early December.

Many friends and family who toured our new house and gardens had the same comment,
"Where's the pool going to go?"

We would laugh and never really considered having a pool until we saw a very nice one at a friend's house nearby. They built an above ground pool nestled into a hillside, with a deck all around it. And that's exactly what we're doing right now. Robert designed the pool using graph paper, then had our Westover Landscape Design crew do a 3D view for us. Here's what it looks like in the rendering:

Our construction crew broke ground and did much of the excavation before we got out here December 2 for our winter stay. Last week much of the framing for the deck was completed along with the retraining walls for the sides of the pool. This week we are leveling the area where the pool will be placed. Next week the deck will be built. After that we add water, hook up the pump and salt infusion system (it's a salt water pool), and add some batteries to our solar system to accommodate the new power draw.

Then, if we're lucky and no big surprises occur, we expect to be plunging into our pool in time for New Years!

Here are some pics of the start of the project, and a short video of where we are as of today.

Video: PS you need to copy and paste the URL below to your browser to open it. 

It may be operator error, but I'm blaming Google Blogger!

https://youtu.be/C6_lhS4DbGE