The First Problem

First thing Monday morning, the builder shows up with his supervisor and starts poking around to find those seawall tieback blocks - the two concrete blocks that are holding up the span beam - and the diagonal tieback rods that angle inward. In the picture foreground, the right wood stake is marking the inner edge of the block, and the left stake is marking the rod, which is sunk into the middle of the block. The two wood stakes in the background mark the other side of the seawall beam. (See yesterday's post for a diagram.)

Unfortunately, those stepping stones right around the stakes mark approximately where the spa was supposed to be located. We had designed the raised spa where it was close to the house (for sprinting out there naked), where it wasn't blocking the view of any part of the pool, and not interfering with my swim lane. The only change from this original sketch was that we rotated the spa one notch so that more of the spillover would face the house. But now the tieback rod and block are much closer than we thought, so we have to move the spa or I lose my swim lane.

Option #1 is painted in the top picture, on the right side. This position will block the view (from the house) of part of the pool, one end of the swim lane. Also it's a bit close to the lanai door - I think it measured less than 5 feet.

(For those of you that don't live in Florida, a "lanai" is a covered porch, usually screened, but sometimes glass-enclosed. Ours is screened.)

Hmmm...the builder makes a PVC "outline" of the spa and paints the 45 degree cutoffs on the PVC frame. We spend a while moving it around the pool to find the best location.

Option #2 is where the PVC frame is located in the top picture, upper right, where the swimout is located on the sketch. This position will block the view of the other end of the swim lane, and we'll definitely have to put another screen door at this end of the lanai. Jets will be really powerful since the pump is right around the corner of the house, but the spa is too close to our teenager's window, just beyond the lanai. And it's only about 4 feet from the lanai, which is a bit close for me.

So we make the decision to place the spa exactly where we didn't think we wanted it, on the far corner. While we knew the whole time that this is the most aesthetically pleasing location, we really didn't want to have to sprint naked all the way around the pool to jump into the spa. But in reality, we aren't going to be sprinting naked anywhere, since we do have a backyard that is open to all our neighbors, left and right and across the canal, and it's usually pretty bright out there, even on the darkest nights, due to all the dock lighting (including our own). We're hoping that the few extra steps won't deter us from using the spa as much as we would have if it were closer to the house. I'm hoping that we can't possibly be that lazy, ever.