Thursday, October 6, 2011

Renovating fun: Spa edition

We had a swamp instead of a spa for over a year, when all the render coming off the concrete started wrecking the pump and filter, which meant we had to turn them off.  Turning off the pump and filter made our very own gross pond, complete with toads, frogs, and slime.  DinnerDad and Smash emptied and cleaned it out last summer, literally a week before the floods we had here, we had so much rain that it filled it back up to the top again!

In the meantime, we resort to this!
I wish I had a pic of it full and swamp-like, it was really impressively awful.  But here it is, drained but not cleaned.  As you can see (ignoring the revolting slime coating), it's more like a small pool than a spa.  A pool with seats: the best kind.

Care for a dip?

Flaking render, with bonus slime!
Anyhoo, we finally got it fixed!  It was cleaned, acid washed, and prepped for special rubber-based paint.  Then painted and dried for a week, while we replaced the light and serviced the pump.  Finally, we got to fill it up, chlorined the crap out of the gunked-up pipes for a week, and then balanced the water.

Filling up the spa (pre-chlorine).
On Sunday, Lolly went swimming in it!!

We're still working on the fence, and DinnerDad is building a deck!
Just in time for summer!

3 comments:

Elizabeth said...

Oh, how wonderful!

Serendips said...

Looks great!

Selene said...

Thanks everyone, it's getting there! Lolly persists in swimming daily despite the cold snap we've had here. brrrrrr!