Phase 2 of The House Behind The Trees ~ The downstairs #TeelsBuildaHouse

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So we are starting the downstairs ... I HATE to say basement because we had a basement in our old home, where you opened a door and went down stairs separated from anything else. It was a finished basement complete with a bedroom, craft room, family/game room and we spent a lot of time there ~ our oldest son moved down there in jr high and stayed through high school ... until we finished the master suite in the attic then he moved back up to the bedroom floor with his brother and sister.  So here our downstairs is open to the rest of the house, you can see through to the outside from the top of the stairs going down because we have a wall of windows down there as well.  We really didn't plan to have a kiddo down there but since we are having to do a switch-a-roo with rooms (I'll explain later) he is moving home soon and will be downstairs. Anyhoo, our downstairs will house our main family room, our middle sons room, a full bath and kitchenette.  I thought it would be fun ...
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Our Backyard Oasis ~ Our above ground DIY buried in ground pool.....LOVE IT!

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Like many families we wanted the comfort of having our own pool, to use at our convenience, not waiting for the local pool to open and then not being ready to leave when it closes. We have thought this out for many years but wanted to wait until our kids were not in danger of being outside unattended. Well that year came last year! With our youngest being 10 and the oldest 18, we finally convinced dad to get us that pool. [Please note that these pictures were taken last spring an hour before we hosted our oldest sons high school graduation celebration party ~ which is why there are Class of 2015 beach balls blown up and floating in our pool as well as Grad balloons in my flower pots and a party tent =)]


While we love our patio and fire pit area we [me and the kiddos] just felt something was lacking ;) Yes we can eat out here, have wonderful conversation and even play games but when it's hot out, a dip in a pool is what we really craved!


The only snafu we hit was the in ground VS above ground debate. Of course we would have loved to have had a complete in ground pool but since our home is over 100 years old, the tree that came out of our yard [it was half dead so it had to go] was at least 100 years old so the root system was ALL over our yard making it impossible to put in an in ground pool =( However, the place where the tree stood left us with the opportunity to have a "hole" that we could place an above ground pool in and come to a compromise....half in and half above.

How you may ask did this work? Well my hubby is an engineer so he planned this all out creating a retaining wall about 8 inches from the pool walls so that the dirt wouldn't eventually collapsed in on the pool. We went with a 52 inch deep by 21 feet around pool and 2/3 of the pool is the in the ground. The outcome was far more than we would have dreamed and we LOVE it! I am extremely blessed to be married to an engineer ;)  The only scary thing is that people coming over to swim for the first time have no idea how deep our pool really is because it looks shallow the way it is set up......they are in for a surprise when they jump in =)

As you can see we aren't completely done with this project as the "wood siding" will go all the way around the pool so we hope to have that finished this summer.  Oh joys of having an old home.....the projects are never ending!

We have lived in this house for 20 years and I couldn't imagine us being anywhere else [even though we have 5 acres that my husband wants to build on, yesterday]. Eventually we will move out to our 5 acre lot as this 4 story gem that we currently call home is WAY to BIG for my rheumatoid arthritic body to clean. Our 5 bedroom old home served it's purpose while we were raising our family but with the first kid out and married we no longer need this much space and it's time for another young, growing family to love "this old house"!

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