Pool and Spa Landscaping - Paving (Family Project)

This project was a renovation of an existing pool area - replacing the pavers, and also to build in a new spa. This was truly a family DIY project that we started during a COVID lockdown, where my kids and my wife were all involved. It was a great learning experience for the kids.

Supplies

• Pavers
• Tiles
• Road base
• Sand - Lots of it!
• Cement
• Timber for spa frame work
• Compressed Fibro sheets for spa floor

Tools

• General builder tools - saws, hammers, nail gun, drills, angle grinder etc
• Tile cutter - Hired for 1 day
• Compactor - Hired for 1 day to compact road base

We cleared the area and setup posts around the spa - forming the rough shape of a hexagon.

The posts are sitting on concreted in steel stirrups

A gutter is placed around the spa to catch the overflow, which drains into a pit and then using a boat bilge pump is pumped back in

The frame work was done between the posts, and the kids "tested" the strength.

Using 19mm compressed fibro sheeting, we glued and screwed the sheets to the frame work

We used electrical conduit to create a nice curve around the edge, then using an angle grinder cut the flooring to shape

We started the tiling - eager to see the it coming to shape

Starting by laying tiles over the edge, and then trimming back to shape

we also started the side walls, ensuring we have access ports to service the spa if needed

This was a mammoth task, to lift up all the pavers and move them out of the way. My wife lifted every single paver herself, and myself and my kids moved them up to piles next to our house.

It was hard, tiring work.... my kids were incentivized - every paver moved resulted in something... for my son it was 1min extra time on his play station, for my daughter it was craft supplies.

Job well done!

The land was about 500mm out of level, from the retaining wall to the back fence - so we (yes my son helped) dug up from the high side and moved the dirt to the low side - maintaining a slight fall to allow water run off

Also good teaching point about "levels" for the kids, they learnt all about levels and how to measure, they helped me setup datum points and tools to do this.

We then compacted this down in preparation for the road base

6T (6000kgs) of road base - this gives us 150mm = 100mm compacted road base - it took all of all, all day, and my 18,000 steps to move it all by hand from the front of the house to the back.

Compacted down, we then measured the high and lows from our datum point (Yellow=low, Purple=good, Pink=high) and adjusted so it was all perfectly level - this was a huge weekend!

Using a sand and cement mix of 4:1 (4 parts brickies sand to 1 part General purpose cement), we laid the pavers on a bed of approx. 30-50mm of sand/cement.

We are using a french pattern design, this was chosen (because we like the style), but most importantly, is very forgiving with the "lines". Nothing in this area is straight or square, so by using a french pattern choosing a perfect line isn't as critical, and we don't end up with tiny little tiles and strange little cuts (hope that makes sense)

We started laying the pavers just before Christmas 2021, as you can see my son even helping out. Its been a huge task which is still in progress - with the finishing touches and we will have final images very very soon (I will upload as soon as they are done).

Thanks for reading