New Construction Pool Design Tips
Builders Wife Blog
It’s POOL day! This is my first time ever having design a pool, because, well – it’s the first time we’ve ever built a home with a pool! Couldn’t be more excited, and living in Central Florida, I am 100% positive it will get good use.
With our new home being on a lake, it was a bit more difficult figuring out our design because we were so limited on available space. It all depends on the city/county you’re building in – but we had to be 50 ft away from our waterline (which is determined by our surveyors.) All I knew is that I wanted A. a rectangular, simple shaped pool. B. an umbrella shelf for chairs & tanning – seems simple, right?
You would have laughed if you looked at our living room as we were trying to visualize the perfect size for the pool and umbrella shelf – using markers, tables, & chairs to layout the dimensions of our future pool. Most girls are visual!
During the design process:
Map it out! Use whatever objects you have laying around the house to create the border for your new pool. This will help you visualize the sizing of the actual pool/umbrella shelf.
Keep it simple. The more simple you can keep your pool design, the more budget-friendly pool you will have. Especially for resale, future buyers aren’t going to pay more for your home (or pool) because you added that extra waterfall.
The finishing touches are what brings the whole thing together! You are going to have to select waterline pool tiles and the finish color/material for the bottom of the pool. If you go on Pinterest and search for waterline pool tiles you’ll get a zillion ideas – but I found that most of their options were the smaller glass tiles. These tiles are super pretty, but ZERO percent practical – they will give you way too many grout lines to clean and will blow your budget.
PRO TIP: Stick to 4×4 or 6×6 tiles, these will usually be included with your original pool quote. This is one of those things that once you’re in and living in the home, you and your guests will never notice. Don’t blow your budget with the pool tiles!
Our pool guy was the one that dropped off our tile selections, and my hubby about died when he saw how many options they provided. But I knew what I didn’t want, so it was easy to start the process of elimination.
Pool tile selections tips:
Again, keep it simple. Like I mentioned above, I promise you, no one will remember what pool tile you selected after spending the day in your pool. Don’t blow your budget here, this is a good place to save some $$.
Go with a square tile. Either 4×4 or 6×6 will give you those easy-to-clean grout lines!
Water reflects! Eliminate those beige, cream, BLAH options and go with some color. The waterline pool tiles will reflect off of the water and will give you that awesome blue/green color in your pool – just depending on what tile you select.
Don’t overthink it. I think I’ve said this before, but this is my BIGGEST tip to everything new home design, and pool tiles are no exception. Just pick one! If you’re not sure, just ask your pool company what is a popular option – and you can leave it to the pros!
After about 20 minutes, drum roll please…. we selected our pool tile! (see waterline pool tile selection below) It looks WAY less satisfying in a photo, but it fit both what me and my husband were looking for.
Can’t wait to see the final project completed with all the pool designs selected and water added to the pool – it’s going to be great, I just know it!
Hope this offers insight into designing your own pool. Share with us your pool design selections!
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