Home Improvement Projects

[Qui-Gon Jim]

Great Job on Mac's room!!  Love the ceiling and it silhouettes.  Justin has Chris' childhood X-wing and TIE-Fighter hanging from his ceiling too!

Just reviewing this tread, and I have to echo Tracy here.  The ceilings came out really nice!  Great work!

[Morgbug]

My wife and I have been talking about having an in-ground pool kit installed in our backyard.  The web-site we've been looking at states that other than the excavation, homeowners can do the work themselves.  Has anyone done this before?  If so, how hard was it?  What advice/tips can you give to someone who's never attempted anything like this before?  Really hoping to get some good guidance on what to expect/avoid if we try this ourselves.  Thanks.

If you can point me to the website, I could form more of an opinion but right now lacking too much information. 

Honestly, if you can handle a backhoe, you could do the whole thing.   I'm not sure then why pool companies exist because it's got to be easy, right? 

I'm seeing major red flags if that's not readily obvious.  We didn't take pics when our pool was built but it was a heck of a lot more involved than just digging a hole in the ground.  They had four or five guys here for three days after the hole was dug. 

[Nicklab]

The big challenge with an in-ground pool?  Digging the hole is a simple job. But is your backyard clear of any pipes, cables or the like?  Aside from the permits, this could be one of the more significant considerations.

[Morgbug]

Responded by pm, Mike, hope it helps. 

[I Am Sith]

My wife and I have been talking about having an in-ground pool kit installed in our backyard.  The web-site we've been looking at states that other than the excavation, homeowners can do the work themselves.  Has anyone done this before?  If so, how hard was it?  What advice/tips can you give to someone who's never attempted anything like this before?  Really hoping to get some good guidance on what to expect/avoid if we try this ourselves.  Thanks.

Sorry I've been away for so long, but as you can imagine from my last post, I've been a bit busy.  We decided to move forward with the project and it's been a grind for about a month.  We should be finishing up this weekend, so I'm hoping to post pictures and testimonial soon.

Bottom line, this was the toughest thing I've ever worked on, but it was not impossible.  We did a lot of the work ourselves, but also hired contractors for certain materials/services when we needed to.  We ended up saving ourselves about half what it would have cost us to hire a company to do the entire project ourselves though, so I think that the frustration, scars, fights and exhaustion was worth it.  More info to come...