Day 50: A thank you to Branch McQueen.

Day 50: A thank you to Branch McQueen

I was sitting on the patio that will become rubble within the next couple of weeks and trying to recall exactly how we got here:

"I can finally see what I never knew we always wanted."

Like I said earlier in the blog, I met with a number of pool companies last year so I would be ready to move this year. I ended up picking Pebble Pools for a number of reasons. Branch, the salesman and designer that I originally met with made me feel very comfortable. He was confident in the quality of work Pebble Pools was capable of and never talked down his competition. The first time Branch and I met, my wife was baking apple bread to sell at a bake sale fund raiser that weekend. Branch asked why she was baking so many loaves of bread and my wife explained the situation. At the end of our meeting Branch asked to buy a loaf and made a very nice donation to a little girl named Alexa "Lexi" Bailey who has since passed away. On top of that Branch doesn't live far from us so he will be seeing this pool for years and if it gets screwed up he will have to see it all the time. Not that I thought Pebble wouldn't do a fantastic job!

So let's go back to our first meeting with Branch. I explained to Branch that I was looking for something more then a "pool". Since it is only my wife and I we didn't need a huge pool, but what we did want was an oasis in our backyard. Someplace that we can go and feel like we are on an island to ourselves. I wanted the entire project to look as natural as possible. I didn't want to see any fiberglass diving boards or slides. I wanted everything to look natural. At this point I have been Googling images of pools and I had an idea of what I wanted, but still couldn't completely picture it. That is where the above picture comes in. I can finally see what I never knew I always wanted. The masonry work on the retaining wall, the grotto with the waterfall, the natural coping around the pool....everything looks exactly how I explained it to Branch in our first few meetings. When we were having communication issues Branch was the one who smoothed everything out and convinced me again that I did make the right decision going with Pebble Pools. He is a great designer and has great patience. We still have another month to go before this project is complete, but at this point I can confidently say that I made the right choice going with Pebble Pools.