Whether it’s family, friends, or readers, the most often asked question about our house is related to the most crazy feature: the pool house. It’s a large room with a deep indoor pool. Here’s the view from the house when we moved in:
And looking back from the fountain seen above:
Clearly, the main feature and purpose of this room is the pool. But, if you look at the above photos, you’ll see a recessed hot tub and a raised wet bar area. When we bought the place, the pool hadn’t functioned in several years. In the 10 or so years the previous owner had been here, the hot tub had never worked. Instead, the pool had very disgusting water lingering and festering. We sucked out the remaining water and ripped out the sun bleached and damaged pool liner.
Before we could landscape and build our single level deck, we had to knock out the platform:
To be able to cut out the concrete…
and lower the door and window:
One thing always seems to lead to another. Or requires something to be done before the next can happen. All of that to say the pool house isn’t looking nice these days. See what I mean?
Essentially, we use the space as our personal warehouse. Those stacks are rigid insulation that we’re using to wrap the house. On the floor we’ve got siding and exterior trim. You can see the saw horses where I prepaint the trim white.
When we replaced the cedar shake roof, the plastic wrap around the skylights came loose. So that dangles down in a really graceful way. Ha.
As stunning as it currently is, this isn’t our permanent plan for this space. Before we can get to any of the pretty parts, we have to remove the plastic ceiling panels and the dark stained siding. Then, we’ll wrap everything in two layers of the rigid insulation panels to hold in heat during the winter.
Here’s what we’ve discussed for the finishes in the room. On the ceiling, we want to use tongue and groove wood. Whether we leave it natural, stain, or paint it is still up in the air. For the walls, we’re leaning toward the same lap siding, but painting it a lighter neutral. A section of the back wall is two feet deeper than the rest. We’ve thrown out the idea of creating a rust steel accent wall there, to help tie the exterior in. Those giant beams will get a good sanding and clear coat. I really like the original lights, so those will stay.
In place of the recessed hot tub, we’ll cover the hole, tile over it, and put in a stand alone tub. They’re so much more efficient and accessing the plumbing is a necessity.
I mentioned tile, and we’re really hoping to use a natural material. Perhaps the same slate we used in the master bathroom because we love it so much. It’s not slippery or slick, and looks amazing. Most of the doors and windows are fogged up, which means the seals are broken and need replacing.
Over in this corner, we’ll add a kick ass kitchenette.
Once we remodel the kitchen, the sink and some of the granite will get reused in here. We thought the old range would live in here, too. Until fate changed that plan. Almost two years ago, we found a barely used 48 inch range on Craigslist for a song. Initially, we thought we’d use it in the kitchen, but decided we’d rather have double wall ovens and a cooktop. So, the steal of a deal range will allow us to bake out here in the summer, without heating up the house in the process.
As for the pool itself, we do plan to fix it. It might need some new plumbing work, and certainly needs a new liner. Most of these plans aren’t a priority. We’ll have to change out the doors and windows soon-ish. Some kitchen work will probably happen when we work on the main kitchen. Other than that, we’ll just have to see when things happen. For now, it’s an extremely convenient place to store everything we need for larger projects.
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