Customer Reviews

Pools and Spas: New Designs for Gracious Living (Interior Design and Architecture)

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POOLS and SPAS

A coffee table book! If , like me, you want to learn more about the technical side of swimming pools, give this one a pass. In spite of the promise hinted in the promotional text of giving insights to "design details" this book doesn't even come close. Most of the pools are out of reach except to those whom money is no object starting with a pool costing $700,000. If for instance, you want to be educated on the pros and cons of vanishing edge pools, the Author tells us, "they have been overused and misused"-no clarification, no explanation, no examples. Of course none of the beautiful pools pictured in this section fall into either category. Design details? Each very beautifully photographed pool describes the multi-million dollar surroundings, the size of the pool pictured, construction i.e. Gunite, finish-Plaster. This scant, mostly irrelative information hardly qualifies as "design details".

If you want to show your pool contractor the kind of pool you have in mind and hand over a blank check, then this is the book for you. You'll get no feel for the typical cost of the pools depicted (except the one for $3/4M) nor will you be guided as to any of the unseen but extremely important mechanical components required.

I'd keep this book if there was just one piece of information that I could consider valuable advice. Thankfully, Amazon will take it back.

The projects in this book are out of the reach of most budgets, but the ideas are incredibly inspirational. It's like looking through Architectural Digest for pool designers. I found incredible ideas for my new pool and spa installation -- many things I never new existed and that the contractors I talked with never mentioned. A pool and spa is a major investment. For me, this book was insurance that guaranteed I would get the aquatic paradise and related amenities me and my family wanted. Plus, it's looks great on the coffee table in our new pool house!