On Friday, the tile and stone guys arrived. They will spend 3 days working on our pool. Dave and his co-worker (whose name I have not yet gotten) know their stuff. First they nailed in strips of a fiber-board that acted as a base for the tile.

Then Dave installed the tile that will be at the waterline. His co-worker began choosing and cutting the stone that will edge the pool.

Our pool will be 6' deep at it's deepest – where Dave is in the photo below. That will be a nice "bobbing" and exercise depth. If you look close you can see the bench on the right side where we can sit in the water and rest (or sip wine).

I decided that it was time for me to climb into the pool. This will be the view of the house from the deep end. Those walls are going to need some plants and/or a variety of pretty things to look at.

Two weekends ago, before we had the new window in the bedroom installed, I decided it was time to freshen up our bedroom (it had been yellow for 10 years). I had come across this photo on a design blog (sorry I can't remember which blog – Now I know. It's from House & Home and here's the link to the photo.) and I knew I wanted a blue ceiling and white walls.

I scraped the popcorn texture off of our ceiling on a Saturday. Steve helped me patch and smooth it after the scraping. The next day I painted ceiling and walls – 2 coats each. It's amazing how much you can do if you don't stop and think about it too much.

Below is the view from the hallway. The window on the left is the new window that was put in after I painted. We trimmed out the window and I painted that woodwork the next week. We can see the backyard and pool (under construction) from it.

This is the other side of the room…

And below is the view of our room from my studio. I am amazed by the amount of light that the new window lets in. Love it! And the white walls are a nice change. They are the only white walls in our house! The blue ceiling is just perfect.

There is a small bathroom off of our bedroom and last weekend I painted it to match. Steve didn't think so, but I really thought it needed it.

The gunnite crew got to our house by 7 AM and they were done before noon. Amazing.

That's the gunnite "gun" blowing concrete. There was a lot of dust in the air. Concrete dust that made me wish all the workmen were wearing masks. Only one was.

That's my neighbor, Jim, inspecting our site. The neighbors are being very nice about the upheaval in the alley.

The Smackdown Auction is over and Hollis' quilt brought in the most so she will wear the belt – way to go Hollis! But all together our four quilts raised $8300. The four of us are very excited. I don't know yet how much was raised by votes on the Viewer's Choice and on t-shirt sales. I'll share that when I know it.

I want to thank all of you for your support! It is much appreciated. I know that I enjoyed taking part in this friendly competition and would do it again without hesitation.

Yesterday was day two of our pool build. They put in the rebar and the plumbing. The crew moved fast and they really knew what they were doing.

Now it's ready for the gunnite.

Ok – today is the day. If you want me to win the smackdown, please oh please bid the price of my quilt up so that it goes for the most money. Bragging rights are at stake (admittedly, it's my bragging rights, but I'm not above bragging on occasion).

Appliquers – unite! The auction is for a good cause, all money goes to fight Alzheimer's – and you end up with a quilt! If you have money to donate, please spend it here.

Thank you in advance.

Elanor, Jack, and Steve watch the big digger driving off of the flatbed trailer. Jack was extremely excited!

The guys used the digger to take out bushes, small trees, some stumps and a layer of dirt. Then they marked the edges of the pool. Normally they would use stakes, but there is a lot of rock under the dirt. The stakes kept breaking so they built these markers.

They hit white rock at a depth of about 1'. White rock is limestone. Some of it was crumbly and some of it came out in huge chunks. The general consensus is that we don't have to worry about this pool moving or cracking. We also don't need to worry about water seeping into the hole. This rock is one reason why basements are non-existent in our part of the world.

At 6' they hit blue rock – shale. I didn't know we had blue rock here and Bill, our pool guy, was also surprised. They have a special rock puncturing tool that replaces the bucket on the end of the digging arm of the digger. It was sort of like a jack-hammer on steroids.

By 4:00 they were done. Tomorrow the steel (rebar) and some of the plumbing goes in. I'll show you what that looks like then!

The general consensus is that this is just about the perfect sized pool. Not too big, not too small. I will get to look out my studio window at water all year round. Oh happy day.