Our Backyard Pool: One Year Later

If you told me growing up, I’d end up with a pool in my backyard, I might not have believed it. But fast forward to now and we do! We continue to enjoy and love it. I never really sat around and dreamed about having a pool, but it sure was something that I enjoyed when I had friends with pools. Floating in a pool is the best thing about summer, I think. When it’s hot and sticky, there’s nothing like going in your backyard and cooling off in the pool. So here we are, one year later and I thought I’d report in on how we are enjoying our pool. We are surrounded by lakes, but now that we have our own backyard pool, I doubt we will get in the lake much at all. We have our own paradise right in our backyard. So welcome to paradise.

Let’s start with the plants. I planted these planters before we left on our cruise in April and they are doing well. With all the rain we get, I don’t even have to water these self-watering planters. My calla lilies have given out for now, so I probably won’t plant those again, but the rest are doing well.

These are White Wedding hydrangeas from Southern Living Plant collection that they sent me a few years ago. I’m so glad I was able to dig them up and keep them in planters until the pool was finished. They are doing well this year even though I didn’t get a lot of blooms off the rest of them this year. This is not a great year for hydrangeas, it seems, so I’m hopeful for next year.

I planted a few impatiens in planters and always love them.

This iron hummingbird I found at a yardsale in Birmingham has been with me for years. I love that I’ve brought all the outdoor bunnies to this yard too.

Another look at the planters.

I have to share the limelight hydrangeas again. This is their 4th year and they are blooming wonderfully again this year. I get beautiful blooms from these plants.

I’m sure I’ll be cutting come and bringing them inside to dry. Drying limelight hydrangeas is so easy!

On any given day when we have good weather, you’ll find us in the pool or by the pool. We sure enjoy floating in the pool. The heater has really made it more enjoyable for me this summer since last year we weren’t able to use it until our gas line was upgraded. It makes all the difference for me! We have been having so much rain again this year that some days are cut short outside, but when we have a whole day with no showers coming through it’s wonderful. We had one of those days yesterday and stayed out all day into the evening with the outdoor lights on.

If you missed my post about lighting up the backyard at night, be sure and check that out. It’s magical out here at night!

Everything looks pretty much the same out here. I still try to cover my cushions or take them in when the weather is rough. I usually pile the sofa cushions under that umbrella, but we’ve had a few thunderstorms come through with high winds and have had to take down the umbrellas when it’s that bad.

We love sitting in these chairs, they are so comfortable. I shared the backyard reveal a few summers ago and where we got all the furniture. What fun that was working with Furniture of Dalton. That partnership really completed our backyard and we still love all this furniture. I protect the cushions as much as possible and take it all in the basement during winter months. I have covers for these chairs. If you click on that post, you can see where the backyard started in case you’re new. This was before the pool was built too last year and shows the evolution of this backyard from the beginning. We’ve been here 6 years now and it’s been a lot of work and projects to get to where we are now. It was not overnight!

The ferns are growing in here on the hill next to the hydrangeas. My blue hydrangeas were stunted this year due to the extreme cold we had last December, so they didn’t come out fully this year and I had to cut them back about 1/2 way, but they are looking good and I’m sure by next year, they will recover and grow back and bloom again. I sure missed those beautiful blue blooms this year!

We love it out here and spend a lot of time in this backyard. All I need is a good book and I’m good to go. That and my computer and phone.

We have get togethers back here periodically and it’s the one place we can entertain a lot of people, since our house is not that big.

Usually, it’s just Mark and me and Daisy and that’s fine with us too.

It’s such a comfortable spot to be. There’s nowhere I’d rather be than here!

I still spend a lot of time on that swing too. Mark sure did a good thing by giving me that swing bed for Christmas a few years ago. Nothing I would have loved better than that swing! Daisy loves it too and lays up there with me a lot.

We have beautiful views from all angles of the yard. It’s not a huge yard, but it sure works for us.

Adding the pool was the icing on top!

We love it so much! Having a pool is definitely more work and most of that work falls on Mark. He’s done a great job with keeping it all clean back here. When leaves fall in fall and winter, that’s the worst part of having the pool. It’s so  hard to keep the leaves out when they start falling from the woods behind us. We bought a net to cover the pool with and it’s a mess for about 2 months with all those leaves falling. But once that is done and most of the spring mess stops falling, it’s great.

We love our backyard so much! It’s small, but mighty. We don’t use the top deck much anymore. I still have furniture up there, but would much rather go below where it’s cooler.

We are very grateful for our backyard and where we are one year later.

It’s a beautiful spot to hang out everyday that’s nice.

I love when it’s sunny all day. We don’t have a lot of days like that lately, so when we do, we definitely take advantage and just stay out here. Stay-cation has a whole new meaning now.

Daisy enjoys it out here too. She still has to wear those harness balls (affiliate link) because she can slide right out that black fence without them.

I added a deer lick outside out fence and we sure enjoy watching the deer come close and use it. Daisy, of course, does a lot of barking when they do, but they don’t seem to be that scared of her.

It’s our backyard sanctuary and we are forever grateful to have it! Thanks for stopping by. If you want to catch up on all the pool posts, go here to see them all. Here’s the finale of the pool last year. All the pool posts are here.

Our favorite floats (affiliate links):

My Spring float

Mark’s float

And if you missed the Lighting up the Backyard post from a couple weeks ago, you can see what we used for lighting and where we got them. The upstairs deck lights are from Christmas Tree lights.  They are regular incandescent outdoor lights. We’ve just replaced the patio string lights with Harbor Freight LED lights. Don’t miss the backyard at night, check that out! It really is magical out here at night. In fact, we were out there last night and I couldn’t resist taking some more night time pics and a certain someone (Mark) decided to take a night float, so he’s in the shots too. It has to be really warm water for me at night.

And the magic happens when the sun goes down! Lights on and blue sky and pool.

We love our outdoor lights and all the ones in the ground are solar. Affiliate links below.

Solar lantern lights

Fireworks Solar lights

Still loving these starburst fireworks lights. They really are so fun at night!

I only have 4 of them, but they make a big impact.

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And that’s the pool tour at night! Hope you enjoyed! As you can see, we really love our backyard and are so thankful to have it. It’s our own slice of paradise!

 

 

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