If you did a double take to make sure you are on a photography blog, don’t worry I completely understand. Perhaps I should start by giving you some background on how I ended up making a stock tank pool…
For a wedding photographer, Saturdays and Sundays are just another work day and you rarely get one or both days off. If you do, that day is spent doing house work, errands, sleeping. So what happens when wedding photography ceases for months (thanks C19-word) and you have already caught up on your house work, errands and sleep? Well, you start jonesing for a pool to escape the Texas heat.
So I stood in my backyard and I sighed. I love my 100 year old house but it has a 100 year old clay sewer pipe that runs straight through the middle of it, making it near impossible to add a pool.
I had seen some Pinterest posts of stock tank pools months prior, but I had laughed them off. It seemed too complicated and too crazy of a thing to do. As we were getting into the heat of another Texas summer, it didn’t seem like that crazy of a thing anymore, so then the research started. I don’t do anything half ass so I hit up Pinterest, Google and YouTube — the trifecta of information for the modern DIYer.
Initially, I was overwhelmed – not because of the plethora of information, in fact, just about every stock tank DIYer was using basically the same parts. The problem was that the parts were not available! So I waited and I googled some more and one day, I just decided to just do it.
[Just a note that I am using affiliate links below for Amazon. A girl has to fund her crazy projects one penny at a time, right?]
Preparation.
This is the area that I started with one week ago – a fairly shady area under a large pecan tree that has the skeleton of an old greenhouse as well as and an outdoor rattan box for chair cushion storage during the winter. Hey, Lynn, it’s not winter anymore, let’s get with the program, right?
Must Haves.
So here are the things that you really, really need before you break a single nail (just kidding, no nails were broken in this process).
- A dedicated outdoor GCFI outlet near the stock tank to power your filter/pump.
- Access to a water hose to fill up the pool and add water as necessary.
- A level area for the pool. You can use leveling sand/concrete/pavers along with a large level. I used 5 bags of leveling sand from my local Home Depot (picked up curbside, of course). Since my dinky 5 inch level wasn’t going to cut it, I purchased a much larger level and placed it on top of 2×4 to check the levelness of the area.
Setting the scene.
It only took a few minutes to clean up the green house and move the storage box. Here are the items that I added for ambiance and real Lynn-type flair.
1) LED Cafe String Lights.
I strung these in a fancy outdoor-wedding-style between the house (concrete Hardie Board siding) and the large pecan tree. You will need to provide your own way to adhere the lights to your surfaces – I used some leftover screws from the bottom of my toolbox. Make sure to hang them without the bulbs to prevent breakage!
2) Flat LED Rope Light.
This was screwed into the underside of the deck for even more fancypantness. You will need either a very small electric screwdriver or a set of small manual screwdrivers since the screws and the plastic brackets that come with this are tiny.
3) Artificial Box Hedge Garden Wall Mats.
– I needed two cases plus one pack (52 panels total) to cover my 8 foot high board on board fence. I found the best price on TableClothesFactory.com and there was a 10% discount using code RETURN10. I installed the mats using an electric Stanley Staple/Brad Nail Gun. Since the mats lock together, the staple gun allowed me to adhere it to the fence fairly easily and to make plenty of noise while doing it! It took about three hours to install by myself, the first two rows required some climbing up and down a ladder, but the remainder were very easy. You’ll need to get a shit-ton of staples, too.
4) 6’5” x 9’10” Rectangle Grey & White Sun Shade with a few accessories.
The area where the stock tank was going is fairly shady during the summer because of the large aforementioned tree, but the tree is a complete mess as the weather cools off, dropping leaves and pecans like they were going out of style. So the shade sail was there to provide some protection from the sun but, mostly, it was there to protect us from those darn squirrels that like to chuck pecans at us every year.
The shade sail purchase was slightly frustrating because you have to deduct between one foot to two feet on each side and also imagine whether or not a rectangular or triangular sail would work best. I wasn’t sure if I could extend the shade sail from the fence on two sides all the way to the house on the left and the tree on the right (the tree does an almost unnatural lean) so I purchased a sail post pole kit just in case, but I did not end up needing it. You can install the pole kit on your deck or digging a hole and adding concrete. Limestone in this area makes hole digging a less than fun activity so I was so happy to be able to attach it to the tree instead.
If you do purchase the shade sail, you will definitely need an additional installation kit since the shade sail comes with ropes. I did also purchase some additional large carabineers because I felt the kit was short by two.
The installation itself took all of the thirty minutes — I laid the sail on the ground and measured two feet away from the surfaces I was going to adhere it to, and centered it so it would reach the house and the tree. Then, I started with the two back hooks on the fence and expanded the kit hooks to get it straightened out. I did have to remount one of the hooks two inches to the left because the sail needed a little but of extra stretch when all was said and done, but it was on the fence so it was easily hidden by the faux hedge mats. The instructions will remind you that the shade sail my shrink and to make sure not to pull it too taut.
5) Three Plug Remote Control Timer.
I love this thing because it has a dusk/dawn setting to turn the cafe and string lights on every evening. It also comes with a remote, which I have never actually used because the dusk/dawn setting is everything I could need. I’ll be honest, I have no idea where the remote is either.
The sail, hedge background and sand leveling took less than a day to complete. Here’s where I was after the first day of prep work.
So what’s next?
That one time I built a stock tank pool | Getting the Supplies
That one time I built a stock tank pool | Set up!