Posts Tagged ‘houzz.com’

Tropical Pools – A great way for a year round vacation

I have to admit, when my family (i.e. kids) visited Disney, their biggest facination was the pool. Where were we staying?  They would ask.  Do they have a pool?  Can I go in it.?  I swear, we really didn’t need to buy park tickets, all we had to do is set them in a really cool pool.  The more things in it to do, the better.  We have stayed at beach themed (The Boardwalk at Disney was pretty cool and reminded me of Wildwood, NJ summers) and the best pool we thought was at Disney Coronado (awesome slide).  I think we hit likely, 14 or 15 different vacation places down here and by far, it was the pool that got the kids the most excited.  These builders now a days are really creative.  I met with Tony from TC Luxury Pools for example and couldn’t get over his work.  These guys are so creative and the software they use really can give you a 3 dimensional walk around your new pool.

Typically, we came down to visit Disney in December until finally, once cold day in 2003 we decided we had it and decided to set our roots down here.  So then came the building of the pool.  Our first home had enough space to play water volleyball for my growing and rambunctious sons but by far, the best part was an 8 man spa.  What I didn’t know at the time was we were making for some great family nights together in that spa.  It was large enough for the kids, who were 7 and 10 at the time, to go diving in the spa – one of their favorite things to do – but big enough to actually float on their backs and observe the stars.  We lived far enough from the fray that we were always seeing shooting stars, and though not the desert sky bristling with glowing shards of light, it was sill plenty of fun.  The greatest part was when the shuttles would go off, especially at night, and we would follow their path into the great sky.  It was a pretty boring pool looking back at it, but it was a great place to bond.

The next two are by TC Luxury Pools and then Clayton Builders, both out of Orlando.tc-luxury-pools-3 clayton-3

SO, here we are again, thinking about building a new pool and of course a spa.  This time, because of our thinking about grand kids someday, we want that pool to have the same list of great things we always found in the pools at Disney properties.  We decided too on a lazy river so that my husband, who has advancing diabetes, can always exercise against the resistance of the flow.  But more than anything, we want to have a spa – a time for us to gather again.  To talk about our day – or our dreams.  My youngest son once decided in our pow wow session to collect books to help the decimated libraries after Katrina, and collect we did. 10,000+ books.  My oldest would mentally write his papers for class and later, his college essays.  Eventually, it became the place to hang for awhile.   Once, during a bad hurricane season, we had no power for three days and trust me – it was the best place to cool off in the summer heat.

I’ve got my heart pretty set on this one below by Backyard-Oasis.com – even the name of the company sounds great, but again, need a giant spa.

SO I have been looking at our favorite “dreamy” sites, watching Exotic Pools on HGTV and pulling out every magazine I can get my hands on to dream of that perfect respite and drooling over the ones at Houzz.com – sigh. My kids are sure its just an opportunity to pick out new tile (my second favorite thing to do).

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The International Awards of Excellence are awarded by the Association of Pool & Spa Professionals (APSP). Every year, APSP honors talented pool builders and pool designers for their amazing projects and water features.  Here are my absolute favorites:

So now, all I need is the right 6 numbers!