What Do You Do During The Lockdown?

[Browneye]

Our suburban home is a FLW inspired design - the main living space has cathedral ceilings and roof-height windows. The four bedrooms and two bathrooms have a flat roof. All bedrooms have a sliding door to the outside, and there is an atrium adjacent to the main living area. It's a very open and airy design, just four windows in the whole house, but seven sliding glass doors.
We fell in love with it the first time we saw it, bought it in 1993. The entire back yard is a 16x32' - 8-1/2 pool, which is a giant PITA to keep up. No lawns.
Biggest downfalls are the 'galley kitchen' (it's small) and just a 2-car garage. There hasn't been a car in either stall for years - a boat and ebikes.

 

[FlatSix911]

Time for a pool party!

 

[Deleted member 4210]

So glad I got our in ground pool installed back in 2012. It's been a great 'investment' for our family, excellent for health and no impact exercise, and the social opportunities it brought about for our kids and some incredible memories with friends and extended family will remain with us for many years to come.

I know some naysayers early on warned it would likely hurt our home value, but I've noticed there are now more than 15 homes in our relatively modest 144 home neighborhood, and the ones that have sold in recent years, sold quickly and at a substantial premium over non pool homes with otherwise similar specs. Neighbors recently stopped by to ask what was involved, as they were looking into getting one. Wait time was something around 18 months.

It was certainly worth the 'plunge'.

So 'what lockdown ? ' our summer has been just as fun as the 7 prior.

 

[Browneye]

The guy at the koi pond place says lots of folks turn their pool into a koi pond after the kids are grown and gone.
We're not quite there yet, but at least a handful of our nieghbors have filled theirs in.

We moved from the Seattle area in 1992, and coming from the PNW with all the gloomy weather, we couldn't imagine a home in southern California without a pool. We've made a beautiful life here. Arguably the best weather in the country, it is always sunny here.

 

[AHicks]

I couldn't do a Koi pond either. I filled ours in and covered it with patio stone.

 

[Browneye]

LOL. A pond conversion is more popular that you fellows realize. And it doesn't 'pollute'.

That's why I said, 'we're not there yet'. Although the pool only gets used a couple of times a year, it's a couple of thousand to maintain it. I'm looking at three years to full retirement age, and looking to move out of the area. It is one of the most costly places in the country to live. We'll see.

Our local Koi Pond dealer has been there for thirty years, super nice guy. We stopped in over the weekend for some plants and fish, but he was pretty well sold out of everything. He did have this huge bio-filter contraption thing though, about 6' long and 2' wide, price of $5730. Holy cow. So it's an 'extra one' left over from doing Brad Pitt's pond - he had ordered 8 of these filters and had one too many, so he had donated it back to the dealer. I have not see the pond in question. LOL

I did a quick search and this showed up in images:

A couple of examples of pool conversions...

 

[tomjasz]

Mise en place and growing tomatoes

 

[PowerflyLee formerly known as CheetahLee]

I buy stuff...

 

[tomjasz]

polluting the backyard

Mismanaging by instant experts can certainly build up pollutants. Changing 10 to 15 percent of the koi pond's water should get removed and replaced with fresh water, rather than just topping off a pond. Pebble tech pools can be nightmare ponds. All those nooks and crannies for bacteria and parasites. An amazing number of ponders give up when they manage to whack off a few hundred bucks in Koi. As a landscape contractor and horticulture director, I've been around a few pond projects.

 

[tomjasz]

I buy stuff...

Bike details!? Very cool!

 

[PowerflyLee formerly known as CheetahLee]

Bike details!? Very cool!

That's Cheetah, by Civibikes, 750 motor and 17.5a battery, he's a beast, with part of my kayak trailer by salamanderpaddlegear
It's way too much fun, probably a little bit illegal hahahaha

 

[Buckdubay]

I am in the process of shipping two sons off to college. Who knows how long before they are back home, if there is an outbreak on campus.

 

[Sifu Ben]

Guerilla gardening at the neighborhood sign. Fixed the sign which was broken in half. Planted flower bulbs. Cut the grass around it occasionally.

 

[tomjasz]

Those poor plants surrounded by wood scrap and dyed mulch...

 

[Sifu Ben]

Someone else put down the mulch to our dismay. It introduced a bunch of weeds.

 

[Sifu Ben]

A nearby forest fire during the early summer which eventually burned about a 100 acres. I was on my Rad Rover to track where the smoke in the neighborhood was coming from. A fire truck is seen here

responding to the fire.

 

[Sifu Ben]

A bad storm toppled a tree which brought down powerlines which started a fire. We heard a bang so I hopped on the bike to find out what had happened. Usually it’s s a vehicular accident were a post gets knocked down. But I found the smoldering fire on the road side. The first responders had just arrived and had not put out road signs yet. I eventually went back to the scene, again by bike. I saw that the tree fell across the road. Good thing that the area behind the fire was marshy.

 

[Stefan Mikes]

And now this! The "yellow zone" has been announced for entire Poland to be in force since Saturday October 10th 2020. Meaning, face-masks to be worn in public by everyone. Lucky me, to own as many as four cycling balaclavas made easy for breathing...

In the cycling HAZMAT headgear

 

[DaveMatthews]

And now this! The "yellow zone" has been announced for entire Poland to be in force since Saturday October 10th 2020. Meaning, face-masks to be worn in public by everyone. Lucky me, to own as many as four cycling balaclavas made easy for breathing...

Yeah I'm ready for that if it ever happens here as well.

 

[FlatSix911]

It really doesn't make sense from a scientific point of view when riding a bike... not that it makes any difference.