Ace and His "Little" Swimming Pool Project

(This is a long post, so, skip it unless you feel like torturing yourself.)

OK - these things seem to happen to me a lot, so, I should have seen this coming...

But...

NEVER seeing these things coming ALSO happens to me a lot!

I have this 12 yr old, L-shaped swimming pool. For the last 2 years, I've grown increasingly annoyed at 3 little worn out spots on the bottom - penny to half dollar sized spots where the white paint has worn thru to the brown gunite.

So, having had enough, I figure I'm gonna get some touch up paint and fix it. Make it look real pretty again. SImple enough plan, right?

But wait - I have to drain the pool to do it first. OK - thats understandable - but the rental for the drain pump and hose costs $75. Hmmmm - ok, I can understand that. So, next, I go to the swimming pool supplies store for some paint. I figure all I need is a little bit, maybe a pint, just for some touch-up.

"Sorry sir, the smallest can we have is 1 gallon."

Hmmmm - well, ok, I need the paint, and all the other stores say the same thing, so, I say ok and ask for a gallon of white pool paint.

"That will be $78 plus tax."

WTF!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? Seventy-eight frigging dollars!!! For a GALLON???????

Oh man - this is starting to get me mad. But what am I gonna do? So I get out the plastic and shell out some more bucks. Then I pick up some rollers, some brushes, etc.

I drop the pump into the pool and start pumping. I go into the house and start watching the news. Miles Musio comes on and says, "Ladies and Gentleman, we are going to have unusually warm weather for Bakersfield the next few days for this time of year. Expect temperatures approaching 100 degrees or more!"

Crap - talk about bad timing. But, I already paid for the pump, so what am I gonna do?

8 hours or so later I stop the pump. Haven't drained the whole pool - just 1/2 of the " L " - to expose the shallow end where the bare spots are. So then I acid etch the spots, rinse, clean it with TSP, rinse again, then go wait another couple hours for everything to dry out.

Meanwhile, it gets hotter and hotter and I'm thinking, "Man, that water would sure have been nice - maybe I should've just waited another few months?"

Now, my teenage daughter enters the picture. My teenage daughter, who thinks she's 25, who suddenly knows everything, the one who never tells me anything until 5 minutes before it's supposed to happen. The one who hasn't used the pool at all in over 2 years because suddenly it had become "uncool" for her to get a suntan or go swimming.

She goes, "Daddy, my friends are coming over to go swimming today, is that ok?"

Geezuz, wtf - where did this come from? So I tell her no, I've drained the pool, I can't fill it for a couple of days, she goes ballistic, starts calling me every bad name in the book, tells me I've ruined her life and she hates me, etc. , etc. I think you parents get the picture.

So, finally, after all this and a couple more hours pass, I decide to start painting. I get out a brush and fill in the 3 bare spots. I look at it - then say, well, I can still see the brush marks, I better use a roller. So I get a roller, and roll out an area somewhat bigger than the original bare spots. Then I notice a few other areas where the old paint looks thin and is about to show through, so I roll over those spots too.

This goes on for another 45 minutes or so. Meanwhile, I'm crouching in the middle of this white concrete box of a pool, going blind from all the reflected white light, with the midday heat bouncing off the walls and cooking me like a hamburger on a grill. I get done, stand up, sweat dripping off of me, and look around at what I've done.

Hmmmm - my bare spots are covered, but now I have two rather large, irregularly shaped areas of bright white, with various white streak marks, sitting in the middle of some older, faded white paint.

"Man, this is gonna look like crap when I fill the pool! This is gonna look worse than the bare spots!"

So, I decide I'm gonna have to paint the whole pool. But wait, I can't - I already returned the pump, and half the pool still has water in it.

Hmmmm - so I decide I'll just paint the shallow end. I spend a couple of hours doing that. I tape off the point where the deeper end of the pool starts, so, even if you can see the different shade of white, it will look like I'm marking off the deep end. Smart right? So I wait 4 hours for the 1st coat to dry, then I apply a second coat. I just barely have enough to finish. I let it cure overnight. I failed to notice the small print on the can that said I was supposed to dilute the first coat with 10% water before applying the 2nd coat. Oh well, I managed to get it done ok I thought.

The next day, I go out to check on it - looks great. I start walking on it on my bare feet. I start walking down the slope, and I slip and almost fall on my ass! WTF - the paint dried to a slippery finish! Someone is gonna slip on my pool steps and sue my ass!!!!, what am I gonna do?

So I go to Home Depot - they sell me some gritty material to mix with my paint. But, I hardly have any left!!!! All that is left in the can is some wet spots on the inside of the can. So, I add some water, start scraping the sides, shaking the can, stirring, I seem to get a not too watery albeit small volume of paint. I mix in the powdered grit, and go back into the pool furnace to finish the job. I have just enough to cover the steps and the worst part of the slope. But now I gotta wait another 48 hours curing time before I can fill the pool - that pushes me to Sunday.

My kid comes up and says - "Is the pool done yet - we want to go swimming today?" I tell her no, it's gonna be another 2 days, she explodes. The neighbors start peering over the fence to see what's going on. My dog starts barking. I'm biting my tongue and trying to avoid saying anything I'll regret.

Next time, forget the paint - I'm just gonna tell folks I planned for those spots to be there - for character.