Houston Swimming Pool

What can Exterior Worlds tell us about the advantages of a luxury swimming pool?
A luxury swimming pool completes the design of your home because it is a natural extension of your indoor living space. For an upscale home, it is a necessity. When it comes time to sell your home, it is an expected amenity and also distinguishes your property from others.

Additionally, luxury swimming pools are great for entertaining whether your party is for business associates or for the grandchildren and their friends. Pools provide healthful exercise and, in this part of the world, they supply an enjoyable place to cool off during our intense summer months.

A source of lifelong enjoyment, a luxury swimming pool creates a backyard sanctuary or family center and is for those people who want to maximize their leisure time. You will want to work with a landscape architect or landscape designer to ensure that your other exterior spaces, such as an outdoor room, outdoor kitchen or garden structures, integrate well with the swimming pool design.

What design questions do I begin with?
Here are some of the issues you’ll want to discuss before taking the plunge:

• How will you use the pool? Will it be a play pool for children or are you planning to swim laps? For daily use or for entertaining?
• Do you want it heated?
• Do you want add-ons such as diving boards and slides, underwater benches, a sun shelf, a spa, waterfalls and negative edges?
• Where will you store your swimming pool equipment?
• What about a salt system? There are pros and cons to this popular choice. We tell our Exterior World clients to be aware of the surrounding material choices if they select a salt system since salt has a corrosive effect and can negatively impact soft decking materials.
• What about safety? One suggestion we make is with the use of fences. We like to hide pool fences and gates by weaving them among shrubbery. This method makes the pool area safe, up to code and aesthetically pleasing.

What materials are people using these days for pools?
Quality materials include:

• Your first choice is plaster which usually means marcite, Georgia or Canadian marble that has been crushed to a fine powder. It hardens like concrete and seals the pool’s interior. You can upgrade your look with quartz finishes—Diamond Brite™ and 3M™ Colorquartz, to name two—that come in a wide range of colors and textures. Or a different upgrade is exposed aggregate, a tumbled rock that is slightly larger than quartz. Pebble Tec® and River Rok are well-known brands.
• For the color of your plaster, we suggest a neutral palette that provides a timeless look. If you want something more daring, you can choose from a long list of colors, including dramatic black or green.
• The area that immediately surrounds the pool is called coping. Care should be taken to make it non-slippery, so good choices are tile, stone and brick. Your coping material should work well with the colors of your home’s exterior.