Swimming Pool Landscape Design

For a Houston landscape, a swimming pool landscape design is often the pièce de résistance. Our climate invites the presence of a pool and people are naturally drawn to it. The creativity applied to the attendant landscaping only heightens the impact. Not merely the glue that holds everything together, a pool and its landscaping are the jewels atop the crown.

Exterior Worlds offers luxury designs that take the basic elements of swimming pools and give them sophisticated élan, creating a special atmosphere for all your festive occasions. Our swimming pool landscape designs allow you to move seamlessly from the interior to the exterior with the pool area functioning as a continuation of your living space. Because it serves as this linkage, it is imperative that the swimming pool design properly complement the architecture of your house. Our professional landscape designers will help you achieve all the prerequisite demands.

There’s even good news for homeowners of older residences with pools designed and built in, say, the 70s and 80s. If you’ve been looking with desire at the latest shelter magazines with their exquisite spreads of swimming pool landscape designs, a swimming pool restoration or swimming pool remodeling project from Exterior Worlds could be your solution.

A restoration project is the least involved of the two projects. Perhaps the pool’s shell could use re-surfacing to achieve a particular aesthetic that is available with today’s product offerings. Or it could mean updating the pool decking with more current material choices.

With a remodeling job, however, a complete re-do is required. It is a project that involves reconsidering your pool area and tailoring it to your specific site, including terrain, tree elements, drainage and all structural architecture, and complying with your specific needs and desires. Since no two remodeling jobs are ever alike, an Exterior World’s professional design team is best suited for this extensive venture. Bottom line, though, both re-do options are viable alternatives to consider.

Items to consider in your swimming pool landscape design:

• In conjunction with your swimming pool designer, you will first need to ascertain the best location of the pool, a choice driven by the space available and the spatial relationship of the house and yard. You want it to be eye-catching and inviting. At the same time, you want it to fit the space without overpowering it.
• Another major element is the patio, the wonderful and much-used outdoor space is often the “living room” of your backyard. Common construction types include flagstone patio, wood patios and patio pavers.
• One feature of the pool to pay close attention to is the pool coping. Coping is the masonry product that sits on the edge of the pool’s shell, often rising above the patio and is the hard surface on which you sit when you dangle your feet in the water. Coping material choices are driven by two functions: compatibility (it should be coordinated with other material choices made for your home and landscape) and safety (it needs to be a non-slippery surface like brick or stone).

For more than 20 years, Houston has turned to Exterior Worlds for high-end landscape design and services, including custom swimming pools. 713-827-2255.

Landscape Pool Design

The first thing to consider in landscape pool design is the size and shape of the pool. It must be constructed in the complex of a larger and more comprehensive landscape master plan. Home architecture must be respected above all things. Next, softscape elements and outdoor buildings must appear appropriately complimented by the pool’s appearance.

What is my first consideration in landscape pool design?
You want to decide on the size and shape of the pool. It is always better to talk to a professional landscape designer about this than the pool contractor. This is because the pool itself is going to fit into the context of a larger landscape master plan. The geometry of the pool must respect the architecture of the home and proportionally compliment the hardscapes and softscape elements of your yard.

How large should my pool be?
Think about your lifestyle and your plans for future events. If you have children, or if you plan to host parties around the pool, you will need a larger swimming pool than you will if you only plan to use it as a couple or entertain a handful of close friends.

Where should I have the pool built?
Landscape pool design is all about relationships to other points of interest. You not only want the pool to look good when you look at it from the home, the arbor, the outdoor kitchen, or the morning garden, but you also want these same features to appear unique and clearly visible when you look out into your yard from the vantage point of your swimming pool patio.

Should special safety features be included in my landscape pool design?
If you have children, yes. If you plan to invite elderly guests or people with disabilities to your home, handrails and special steps that lead down into a shallow part of the pool need to be built into its design.

What recreational features can be incorporated into landscape pool design?
One of the most popular features that we often build into our pools is a spa. Spas are normally heated and lit so people can feel a blend of comfort and luxury when reclining within them. Spas can also be designed with special jets that will help those with arthritis or other physical challenges get safe and healthy water exercise.

If you have such a physical challenge, get your doctor to describe in detail what you need in terms of water exercise and share it with our design staff. We have all sorts of custom designs we can adapt to your needs.

Do you recommend special water features?
That is a matter of personal preference, but the decision to incorporate special water features needs to be made at the onset of landscape pool design. Waterfalls add excitement and vertical impact to pools, and when lit with underwater lights, a sense of magic. Water jets can also add drama and impact to both daytime and nighttime pool activities, as well as giving children something to play in.

What type of patio should I have built around my swimming pool?
You can have anything from decorative concrete to something as elaborate as cut stone that is hand-laid and made to imitate something in the natural world. The shape of your patio should aesthetically compliment both the pool and the surrounding landscape. The size of your patio should reflect your anticipated number of guests for planned outdoor events.

Three-Level Pool Patio

When they work only with softscape elements like lawns, gardens, trees, and shrubs, it is sometimes very challenging for Houston landscaping design specialists to create special zones of comfort and interest. Vegetation is good for magnifying space, but to build a sense of structure into the landscape, architectural structures and custom hardscapes have to be introduced into the master plan that will scale down the Houston landscape into deliberately proportioned spaces that create a sense of amenity for people.

One phase of a multi-phase Houston landscaping project recently done for the Friedman family illustrates this truism. The home and yard were of such monumental proportions that outdoor elements had to be designed in proportionally large dimensions. Along with a custom swimming pool, we had to build a 2,000 sq. foot patio pool deck that could host events number up to-50 people. The challenge was to design the patio with an aura of uniqueness and significance to avoid generating too much of a stage effect.

Houston landscaping designers eventually determined that three elevation changes could be built into the hardscape that would effectively create three distinct areas of interest and assembly. One area would surround the pool itself. A second area, higher area connecting to the summer kitchen of the home would overlook the pool fountain and the spa. A third area at the opposite end of the pool would lead up to an arbor that offered a superb vantage of the surrounding Houston landscape.

We constructed the patio out of Pennsylvania blue stone. Using a dark colored stone like this is one way to scale a large property down in perspective. It creates a focal point that draws the eye away from the vastness of the Houston landscape and draws it into a new realm of refined poolside comfort and special water effects.

Houston landscaping experts designed the patio with custom drains and special water jets that helped create these water effects. At night, water shot out from these jets into the lighted depths of the pool.. Stairs leading up to the terrace were built broad and wide so people would feel like they were gradually descending to the water or ascending into a higher realm.

We also used Pennsylvania sandstone to continue the aesthetic theme of the patio. This terrace offers first time visitor and returning guests alike a superb choice between the spa and the arbor above. Rocking chairs provide comfortable seating from an ideal vantage point just in front of the arbor. A retaining behind the terrace built to hold back the grade of the soil also serves a decorative function by framing the entire upper patio with border and emphasis.

Houston Swimming Pool Contractors

Are you dreaming of new landscape plans, one that includes a swimming pool in your back yard? If so, Exterior Worlds is one of the best regarded Houston swimming pool contractors and we’d be happy to help with your project.

The process starts with the design. As longtime Houston swimming pool contractors, we are experts in the design aspect. Your choices range from lagoon pool designs to waterfall landscape designs to site-specific designs—and just about everything in-between.

Our swimming pool discussions always include safety. Areas for your consideration:

• Non-slippery surfaces in the immediate wet area.
• Depending on your lifestyle, a pool fence to safeguard who has access to the water, such as an ornamental iron fence.
• Night lighting. The lighting for your pool should be viewed as part of your overall residential landscape lighting plan with the intention of making it seamless with the whole.

If you are landscaping for entertainment, you might want to think about putting in additional water elements that elevate the design impact. Examples of these head-turners include pool water fountains and fire and water fountains.

For those of you considering landscaping remodeling, Exterior Worlds is a particularly smart choice as your Houston swimming pool contractor due to our willingness to go the extra mile in getting the job done right. While a swimming pool remodeling project certainly can be done and often is something that needs to be done, it is a complex job that requires the most from your swimming pool professionals. In other words—no time for a cookie-cutter frame of mind.

Once the design is nailed down, then as your Houston swimming pool contractor we will do the following:

• We schedule a pre-construction meeting to let you know what to expect, when and by whom.
• Simultaneously, we will begin the permitting process.
• Once the necessary approvals are in place, then comes the grading and excavating of the site.
• Rebar is then installed in the shell, as well as the plumbing and electrical work is completed.
• The pool will be sprayed with a concrete-like substance called gunite.
• After the gunite cures, comes the installation of the coping, specialty features such as outdoor fireplaces or retaining walls, and the pool deck.
• As the last step, the gunite is plastered, often using upgraded materials such as quartz finishes in a wide range of textures and colors.
• Then add water and the fun begins.

As you can tell, it is no small task to undertake the building or restoring of a swimming pool. Therefore, it may be in your best interest to hire us as general contractor, also known as a project designer. In this capacity, we bring two important assets to the table. The first advantage is that we can look at your entire landscape design to ensure that the pool integrates with the total picture and that all your landscaping zones flow together.
The second benefit is financial—we will schedule the different subcontractors, thus keeping the work progressing in a logical and timely manner, which, in the end, saves you money and aggravation.

Since 1987, Exterior Worlds has provided upscale landscape services, including project management for swimming pools construction and remodeling to the Houston area. Call 713-827-2255 for a consultation.

Houston Pool Remodeling

Of all the Houston landscaping ideas available, Exterior Worlds has found that luxury swimming pools are one of the most popular. Our clients want their landscapes to be uniquely their own, a touchstone of their aesthetics and sensibilities. In particular, with a swimming pool, they can make it a shimmering reflection of their lifestyle, an example of Houston outdoor living at its finest.

Pools have become an expected amenity for the upscale home, never more so than in these days of staycations and cocooning at home. With that in mind, many of our clients face a Houston pool remodeling project, being owners of older homes with pools built in the 50s, 60s and 70s.

A Houston pool remodeling project starts with the selection of your general contractor and swimming pool designer, such as the superlative landscaping services you will find at Exterior Worlds. We combine the talents of an expert and dramatic flair for design with listening intently to the customer and the skill to keep the complicated projects on track and on budget.

The complexity of your Houston pool remodeling job depends on many factors with the most elaborate ones being those in which everything is wrong—the wrong location, the wrong style and the wrong materials. In these cases, it’s not just the pool that needs to be retrofitted and updated; rather the entire backyard needs to be changed, added to and rearranged.

With some older pool remodels, in order to meet current regulatory requirements, we have to completely overhaul the plumbing and electrical systems. Whenever possible, we try to salvage the shell which means removing the concrete, redoing the plumbing and electrical, and then rebuilding the structure around the existing shell.

At the other end of the complexity spectrum, you have the situation in which the area can be updated by merely changing out the surrounding elements. In some cases, the pool area can be remodeled by replacing the pool deck, which is the material, usually a form of masonry, that encircles the pool. Such a pool deck remodel project allows you to coordinate its material choices with others in your master plan, restoring the tones and textures to a complementary balance. Examples of today’s material choices for pool decks include tinted and stamped concrete, brick or stone.

In general, it is good to start any remodeling project with a clear eye. You may find that once embarked upon a Houston pool remodeling project, you uncover all kinds of problems inside the shell and beneath the pool deck that need to be fixed. Leaking plumbing and worn electrical systems are just two of the most common. Since no two projects will ever be alike, this prospect underscores the necessity of hiring an experienced contractor, such as Exterior Worlds, who are experts specifically in pool remodeling.

While undertaking a swimming pool restoration, you might want to consider adding other custom hardscapes to your overall design. Luxury landscape items such as waterfalls, garden structures, and outdoor fountains, for example, create pleasing visual and auditory environs—spaces that that you, your family and your friends will enjoy for years.

Since 1987, Exterior Worlds has provided comprehensive landscape and design services in the Houston area. Call us at 713-827-2255 for a private consultation.

Pool Deck Remodel

Is your swimming pool area looking dated or rundown—or has it even become unsafe? If so, call Exterior Worlds for a pool deck remodeling project.

Let’s begin with a quick primer on swimming pool construction terminology and the finishes involved. The interior shell of a pool is covered with plaster that hardens like concrete and seals the interior of your pool. Popular upgrades used today include quartz finishes in a wide variety of colors and textures.

Next comes the pool coping, which is the area that immediately surrounds the pool. The coping locks in the pool plaster on one side and seals the deck on the other. Because you want to ensure a non-slippery surface in the immediate wet area, preferable choices are tile, stone or brick.

Then—the pool decking that encircles your luxury swimming pool. It is usually made of some kind of masonry and connects the pool to the rest of the spaces. It becomes a special dimension within your landscape design, creating usable, safe spaces that are visually pleasing.

Before you make a decision about your decking material, consider your total landscape design. You can integrate your swimming pool design into its surroundings by creating smooth transitions between the pool, yard and general background. A swimming pool adds texture to an otherwise blank and flat yard, so be creative. If you have small yard, a pool turns it into an oasis. For wood decks or flagstone patios attached to the house, you can use your pool decking choices to coordinate or contrast with them. In general, you don’t want a very dark color for your pool deck because it will absorb heat. Likewise, you don’t want it too light because of the higher maintenance.

You have a marvelous range of materials to choose from with a pool deck remodeling project. A pool deck remodel project gives you the opportunity to coordinate material choices in your landscape, something that can get out of balance in older homes that have undergone many home projects. Keep in mind that you want the tones used in the house and landscape to be complementary. Our clients’ choices include tinted and stamped concrete, brick and stone. One example of a design conscious choice would be to use a darker stone with a light grout or rich dark grout with a lighter stone color.

In discussing a pool remodeling project, all decisions should factor in safety. Now may be a good time to think about installing a fence around your swimming pool. Exterior Worlds will be happy to discuss different options. For example, you may want to highlight the fence by using custom ornamental iron fencing or, conversely, you may prefer to make it unobtrusive by having us weave bushes around its perimeter.

Some of our clients find that once they start a pool renovation project, such as pool deck remodeling, they uncover additional problems beneath the deck that need to be updated, such as the plumbing, the pool lighting and the general electrical system. Once the decking is ripped out, you have an opportunity to address those issues, too, a decision that usually saves money in the long run.

Swimming Pool Renovation Project

The Berry family of Houston, Texas recently hired us for a pool renovation project. The pool surface, plaster, tile, and coping required reworking. Originally, the Berry’s had contacted us to see of we could simply restore the pool. We told him that we certainly could, but after pointing out to him how the pool was actually working against his overall landscape design, we were able show him how swimming pool renovation would actually give them a better outcome than they had hoped for.

The original pool had some design challenges that prevented it from working harmoniously with the remainder of the landscape aesthetic. Part of the pool was framed by an architectural wall and by a partly brick and bluestone patio. The problem with this design was that the wall was too tall. It created a sense of separation from the remainder fo the yard, and it obscured the view of a beautiful arbor located just behind the pool. It also hosted a contemporary, sheer descent waterfall fountain that looked oddly modern and out of place in relationship to the traditional lawn garden design of the yard. Restoring this wall to its proper relationship with the landscape was the most important component of our swimming pool rennovation project.

We knew that the fountain had to go because the contemporary design did not work with the freeform swimming pool design or the residential architecture of the home. We felt that the wall would work better if it were one foot lower, and if it took on the appearance of a more deliberate vertical extension of the brick and bluestone patio. To create this façade, we had to rebuild the wall with bluestone columns that match the tile of the patio. These columns rose up in stately form behind the water and were capped at the top. Wiers jutted out from beneath the capstones and poured water into pool. These wiers were crafted with a thermal finish in a flame detail.

We continued our swimming pool renovation with an expansion of the brick coping. This drew greater emphasis to the body of water within its form, and helps focus awareness on the tranquility created by the fountain. We also removed the outdated diving board and replaced it with a diving rock. This was more attractive, and far more safe as well.

We then extended the entire pool and patio another 15 feet toward the right to give the area a more relaxed, sweeping feeling. We also changed out the spa coping that had a lot of problems. It had an odd shape, so we custom crafted brick interlace coping that would fit the oodd shape. We also expanded the brick coping all around the pool from the original 8 inches to a full 12 inches.

We then expanded the new forms of our swimming pool renovation into the rest of the yard. We began by building a sense of connection to an arbor that stood behind the pool. The arbor needed no remodeling of its own, but it had been previously obscured by the oversized wall. Because an arbor is both a seating area and an architectural focal point of outdoor landscape design, we wanted to generate an interest in its location, and create something that would invite visitors to venture beyond the hardscape into the world under the trees.

To accomplish this, we built a walkway out of bluestone stepping pads that actually extended across the surface of the pool. We also built a terrace and a dining area in front of the arbor to make it a place where people could spend an entire afternoon and evening under the trees.

Infinity Pools

An infinity pool is a swimming pool or reflecting pool with a negative edge. It is also called a zero edge pool or disappearing edge pool. The intention of this design is to suggest that the water extends beyond the horizon to and vanishes into an indeterminable point beyond—literally into infinity.

Infinity pools are among the most challenging elements of landscape architecture to construct. It requires a great deal of skill on the part of the swimming pool design specialist to create the effect of vanishing water. It also requires adapting the pool to geological formation surrounding the structure. In the Houston landscape this can be particularly challenging due to the fact that we have such flat terrain.

Infinity pools here must be constructed at a high enough elevation to allow water to drop into the unseen realm at the edge of the structure. In actuality, this so-called unseen realm is really a concealed catch basin hidden beneath a weir over which the water flows. The water pours into this basin and is recirculated into the pool by silent pumps.

In order to generate the flow of water necessary to create this silent disappearing act, we have to build the weir at least one-half to one inch lower than the required water level. We also have to build a separate circulation system for the edge flow. Sufficient momentum must be present in the water in order to cause it to run over the weir into the catch basin below.

We also have to be very careful to take into account inconsistencies in flow caused by swimmers. When people swim in an infinity pool, they will naturally displace more water into the edge than normal flow will produce. The catch basin must large enough to withstand this displacement, and the pump must be sturdy enough to return the water to the upper pool.

Without exception, edge pumps in infinity pools are larger and more powerful than the main pool pump for this reason. They also feature very sophisticate filtration mechanisms to prevent the debris that flows over the weir from clogging the pump. A great deal of mathematical calculation goes into designing these edge pumps and catch basins, which might be another reason that the word “infinity” is used as a descriptor for these very special water features.

Beyond the sophisticated engineering they feature, infinity pools create some of the most magnificent scenery in all of landscape design. This is because they are always built in relationship to other points in the scenery. They can function as giant mirrors reflecting the overhanging branches of trees. They can point toward a pond or natural stream, or they can stretch toward open sky and appear to blend blue vastness with water and fluid movement with rainbows and clouds.

Pool Coping

Pool coping is a masonry product that sits on top of the pool beam structure. It provides transitional space between the patio proper and the surface of the water. People often sit on the coping and dangle their feet in the water. Others prefer to stand on it and peer into the water at night when pool lights illuminate the water from below. Coping should therefore be strong enough to support the weight of a person.

Pool coping is one of those hardscape designs where there is a wide range of choice in what you can do. It can be made from many different materials. Common materials include slate, travertine, concrete, brick, and stone. Material selection is based upon pool style and upon what best compliments patio build out and home architecture.

In one very unique project, we had a couple in River Oaks request that we not build a patio at all, but simply install a coping around the pool that would separate the water from the lawn. We call this our grass patio pool project and it is one of our more famous creations here in the Houston area.

Luxury pool coping is commonly made from either travertine or limestone. Both look amazingly refined when polished and work well with a number of home architectural styles—particularly Italian and Mediterranean.

The texture of the material used is determined by two things. One is how the particular material itself is formed. If it has been sawn, it will appear segmented. Honed surfaces create a more contiguous look. The other factor in creating texture is finish. Coping can be thermal finished, which means that it has been heated with a flame until it appears slightly pebbled with a medium relief.

Pool coping can also be polished to a high level of reflectivity to catch sunlight or underwater pool lights. It can also be chiseled to have a rough-cut look and appear more rugged and natural in collusion with stone patio work.

Pool coping is a major point of focus in our pool renovation projects. It is one of the most significant aspects of pool design because coping can be adjusted to correct elevation issues when lowering or raising the pool patio is not an option.

Pool coping can be either thin or thick. Thin masonry is often used to remodel a pool with insufficient elevation to create a sense of height that was previously absent. This eliminates the need to try to figure out how to lower the deck or pool shell in areas where buried cables or tree roots prevent such alterations in patio design.

Pool coping can be the keynote to your custom patio design as well if you have it done by a professional firm who knows what they are doing. Far more than simply a boundary around the water, the coping rises up to establish presence, geometry, color, and style as a prominent work of hardscape in backyard landscape design.

Swimming Pool Restoration

Swimming pool restoration creates an attractive aesthetic that will stand out in the landscape. Older pools that were constructed in the 70s and 80s were built with standard-grade materials that were rather lackluster to begin with. Over the years, these surfaces have become weather-beaten and even less attractive. By restoring a brighter, newer appearance to these surfaces can make an otherwise ordinary pool look extraordinary at a much lower cost than a complete renovation would entail.

Aesthetically, we work to make the pool more noticeable and to give it a stylistic touch that will last beyond historically dated decorative trends. Tiles are replaced that are more sophisticated in color and texture and that will last beyond the momentary preferences of the present decade. Superior materials that are both more colorful and longer-lasting are chosen based upon their relationship to architecture, hardscape, and softscape elements—not simply the swimming pool itself.

Restoration also involves replacing the plaster that lines the gunite shell of the pool. Laying new, more durable plaster in place of the old helps restore a shiny appearance to the pool interior which adds depth and mystique to the water when illuminated at night.

We also rework plumbing at this time - Drains must be placed a certain number of feet apart to avoid creating suction wells at the bottom of the pool. As regulations have become stricter over the decades, older pools have now fallen out of compliance because their drains are too close together. Moving them to an appropriate distance from one another is a major aspect of swimming pool restoration that must be attended to if we are going to service our clients impeccably and thoroughly.

The experience we have gained over the years in outdoor architecture and custom hardscape design also better enables us to match tile textures and colors to surrounding patio design, outdoor buildings, home architecture, and garden design. We do all of the advance planning work for our clients by choosing the best materials, colors, and textures that will appropriately compliment those elements surrounding the pool. We then sit down with the client and go over these options one by one.

At this point, swimming pool restoration is in a highly consultative phase in the landscape design-build process. It is important to choose the blueprint of design, materials, and colors first before doing anything else. We do not insist that clients go with a particular, singular option, but instead work to frame the project for homeowners and let them consider which of our professionally-recommended courses of action will best suit the needs of their custom swimming pool.

After tile color and texture have been chosen, we also discuss options for new coping. Many different types of materials can be used to build this very significant swimming pool element. Sometimes, when it is not safe or practical to lower the pool shell, we will change the elevation of the coping and surrounding patio and thereby change the elevation of pool access. This proves to be of immense value in situations where there utilities, drain systems, or vital tree roots located near the pool.

Both design elements and the finer details of swimming pool restoration are finalized by the homeowners before implementing redesign. We recommend that clients consider upgrading patios and adjacent garden design at this time as well. This helps ensure a continuous aesthetics throughout the back yard proper, and it further magnifies the restoration work we do on the pool by creating complimentary forms and structures in the immediate environment.

Swimming Pool Renovation

Swimming pool renovation is a design-build service that transforms the existing size, depth, and appearance of an existing pool. The pool shell will often be replaced by an entirely new structure. The geometry of the pool, along with horizontal and vertical measurements of its form, will also change accordingly. New surface areas will also be added to its exterior, ranging from high-grade coping and tile work to spas, water jets, and new surrounding hardscape structures.

This level of redesign is not something the average pool contractor wants to work with. There are too many control grade factors, such as distances between corresponding points, to attend to cost effectively. Pool contractors prefer to build new structures from the ground up, and the focus is always on making the structure workable and attractive as a unity within itself—not a reciprocal element of a larger landscape design.

When our team undertakes a swimming pool renovation project, our entire mindset originates from a much different frame of reference. We approach the task at hand with the intention of creating better landscape architecture through the introduction of a new swimming pool design that will more appropriately compliment home architecture and serve as a more effective aesthetic fulcrum between organic and inorganic elements.

In order to do this, we have to do everything onsite. There are too many factors to consider in the design-build process to work from a drawing board perspective. Whereas the pool contractor plans a new structure in an office, then brings those plans to the location and builds them out, we have to do something completely different. We have to let the landscape design speak to the plan we are developing and work our design into the fabric of surrounding elements. This ensures the outcome of our swimming pool renovation work will be proportional and balanced with its surroundings.

Beginning the design process onsite has other advantages beyond the aesthetic. There are many challenges that face the team each step of the way. Tree preservation is very important to our company. Root systems can travel deep underground and fan out in all directions from tree trunks. We cannot simply start digging out the far end of the pool without first determining if this is going to damage one or more vital roots that could affect the health, or even the life, of a tree.

Drainage systems and utility lines also have to be worked around. The city of Houston does not like it when you cut their gas and power lines—and you won’t like it either if you lose power or gas in your home as the result of clumsy swimming pool renovation techniques. Many different things can be done to work around buried utilities and tree roots, but they must be done methodically and systematically. Rushed jobs by inexperienced companies almost always result in some sort of damage that costs the homeowner additional and very painful expenses.