It took me a while to purchase my first house but when I saw it- it was a bulls eye (ok, I could use a bigger front porch..). Great little “secret” neighborhood 5 minutes from uptown but far enough to not suffer the consequences- free from a HOA that would surely have some opinions from what has become a shenanigan factory.
The whole footprint of my house also exists underground and you can drive right under it by virtue of a “batcave” driveway which has retaining walls on either side. I saw lots of potential right away but it took a few months to spark the driveway pool into reality. Standing in my living room you get a view of the front driveway with retaining walls on either side. Imagining diving out the front window into my driveway was plenty of motivation once that idea pop’ed into my head. From there it was a short trip to CAD of the house (also handy for plenty of other modifications), some calculations, and a plan to create heavy barriers and a liner to contain 19,200 gallons of tapwater for a party or two.
A few design details included some polycarbonate windows and clear shower curtains bonded to the harbor freight giant tarp that allowed people to view all the way through the pool. These windows were also conveniently aligned with the headlights on my lifted jeep so that the jeep could not only provide some structural support but also provide illumination to the pool.
Now, this was always intended as a temporary pool despite the effort of setup & takedown, so it was a couple of days of fun before the lack of filtering and desire for a driveway again demanded some action. In lieu of filtering by the end, we just added a bunch of soap.. well, that and a leaf blower. So our driveway pool in its sunset days became a bubble party.
As you can imagine it’s kind of a pain so I’ve only had two parties featuring this attraction. It’s debut featured some guest innovations including dry ice, and snorkelers. The rock & roll bbq had already been invented and so was represented. The later party was a smaller affair but also included a slide & floating bbq grill (aka. “pool heater”). Now that we have Delilah, if we ever do this again I expect it to be a more kid-friendly affair. We shall see!
Aw, what the heck- here’s a whole gallery:
