We live in a time when the nation is divided. Angry debate rages on each side, neither party willing to concede an inch on their stance. I’m not talking about the presidential election or legalizing marijuana or Common Core. This is way more important than that.
I’m talking about the above-ground pool.
Did you shudder at the thought? Did you picture an electric blue eyesore hogging half your backyard?
Or did you gratefully gaze out the window at your own above-ground pool, counting down the days until summer when you’ll cannonball straight into that sucker and stay there until fall?
Tee was in the first category. Above-ground pool? Ew, no thanks. Then she bought a house with one, and she said “Seriously, no thanks. We will only buy this house if the sellers remove the pool.” And the sellers were like, “HAHA no.”
And her new neighbors were like, “Give it a try! You’ll be thankful to have it when summer comes.”
And Tee was like, I SAID NO, I HATE THIS THING!
And so she endured two sweltering summers watching her neighbors bob blissfully in their own above-ground pools. Finally, she could endure no more. The heat, the swampy eyesore, the possibility that there was a dead squirrel in there (there was). She gave in.
But not without beautifying it first!
She dressed it up with flowers and fresh foliage, new landscaping, and a sturdy deck. Plus some hard-core scrubbing. And now she LOVES it! Who wouldn’t?! It looks so inviting.
She says “I’ve grown to love our pool, “above ground” and all. It represents a metaphor for so many things in life and the home: sometimes you can’t change everything. You may have to work around your limitations. That doesn’t mean that the results can’t be rewarding or beauteeful.”
Love that. Read more on her blog Beauteeful Living.
5 Comments
Pia
January 15, 2016 at 11:22 AMThe before looks exactly like the pool in the horror movie It Follows. o_O
Hil
January 15, 2016 at 1:10 PMThe before is actually better than I expected from an above ground pool (except the tarp w/ gross water). I thought they were usually plastic looking…
This one looks especially inviting after!
Tee @ Beauteeful Living
January 15, 2016 at 2:52 PMHi Lindsey, thank you for sharing our above ground pool transformation on your blog. We made additional changes to our backyard which I plan to share in the spring. Thank you again for the feature!
Maria from Oz
January 15, 2016 at 6:10 PMGood grief, woman! Here in Australia it was 44C Do you hear me? 44 Celsius is like the flames of Hades! What person would not want a pool even with a dead ferret, frog, whatever in it? My god! I only would slap Tee’s pool liner and say, “Woman! Get your arse (pronounced ahse) out here now and find me some floaties armbands, coz I am taking me a dip!” She’d be probably all horrified that a crazy Aussie was mad enough to jump in with a dead koala or raccoon but NOTHING can stop us when we are roasting in the Land of Oz!
Except that once the heat stroke wore off and the coolness of the dead animals eyes made me come to my senses, I would realise that the AFTER is MUCH better for relaxation and sanity. Man, pour me a Charddy and whack on the barbie and let’s get this summer party started! Woohoo! (Charddy is chardonnay and barbie is not Ken’s mate.)
Deb
January 15, 2016 at 11:12 PMAlso from Australia: in half of Sydney if you dig whole a metre (yard) deep you’ll hit water because the whole place rests on an aquifer.
The only manky thing about an above ground pool is letting it get into picture 1 condition!
You surround the whole thing with decking, then mandatory safety fencing, then shrubs/ferns/whatever will grow to cover up to the height of the deck.
My cousin even had an above ground concrete pool on a sloping site & you’d never have known it wasn’t in ground.