We've had a beautiful in-ground pool for about 6 years now, and believe me, the whole family enjoys it to the full. My twin sons are both on the swim team at school and so they can get in some extra practice, and my wife has some mobility problems for which a good swim every day helps immensely. And I just love throwing myself in it after work to loosen the muscles and unwind.
The only problem is, we live in the north so the weather isn't always conducive to outdoor swimming. You'd think we were going to a funeral every autumn when its time to close it down for the winter. It's a job that has to be done, but we really hate having to do it because it means the end to all our most enjoyable moments until the weather warms up again.
But that's all changed now!
One day, Bobby, our more avid swimmer of the twins was doing some research on the web looking for a gym he and his brother could join to get in some winter swimming after school. One place he found actually had a separate metal building to house their Olympic sized pool.
"Hey Dad, look at this," he called out to me. "Why couldn't we do something like this with our pool?"
I looked at the picture of this huge prefabricated pool center and thought of the cost immediately. "And how do you expect me to pay for something like that?" I asked him.
He quietly dropped the subject, but switched his web browsing to finding prefabricated metal buildings just to get a feel for the prices. Besides swimming, Bobby was also good with math and economics, so as he browsed, the smile on his face got bigger and bigger.
After an hour or so, he strolled into the living room where my wife and I were sitting. "Get this," he announced. He then proceeded to explain how, with the dimensions of our pool, we could get a prefab metal building for almost the same price as two monthly memberships to a gym, plus the cost of opening and closing the pool every year.
At that moment Billy, the other twin walked in from his bedroom where he was studying. "And both Bobby and I can help pay for it too!"
"Yeah but those prefab buildings are so ugly," chimed in Sally, my wife. "It would make our back yard look like an auto body shop."
Bobby placed his laptop on the coffee table and spun it around so we could see the screen. Before us was a picture of a beautiful prefabricated horse stable.
"I'm thinking we could get this and convert it into a pool house. We'd have enough room left over to put a workout area in the back too," Bobby said excitedly.
Well, to make a long story short, we all agreed to look into the matter further, and before long made the decision to order the metal building. My sons and I spent a good part of the winter building it in our spare time when there was no snow on the ground. The conversion process was rather amazing, and when it was finished, we had exactly what we wanted.
We actually ended up building it backwards, with the two large stable doors in the back where the workout area was going. That way we could open both doors in the summer to get some air circulating while we exercised. We bought an additional canopy for the small door at the opposite end which served as the entry to the pool area from the house. Naturally there were some other additional costs for insulation, drywall, carpeting, paint and heating, but all in all it didn't break the bank in the least.
We even had enough money left over to buy each of us our own locker!
Come spring, Sally did some garden alterations so the pool house looked more like it belonged there. She planted shrubs and flowering plants all along the outside edges, and the boys laid down some red mulch to add to the beauty of it all.
Finally, the boys and I rummaged through the attic and brought down all the exercise equipment we had stored up there because there was no room in the house to use them. They all fit perfectly in the workout area!
Sure it was an investment, but in the end its a pleasure to see the family getting the most use of the pool year round. In fact, we're planning our very first winter pool party next month!
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