Ideas for Pool Areas

Just like the deck, patio and garden are treated like outdoor rooms of the home, pool areas can be decorated, furnished and landscaped to make them more attractive and useful. Pools are extensions of the home and yard used for leisure and entertaining. The area around a pool presents opportunities for creative landscape enhancement. Potted palms, solar lanterns, flagstone patios, fireplaces and patio furniture are a few of the decor items used around pools. Does this Spark an idea?

Save the Soil

When excavating during pool installation, save the soil dug from the pool location and use it to landscape the pool area. Build berms around or on each side of the pool, and plant flowering perennials and shrubs. Put decorative mulch on the dirt and around plants. Use the soil around the outside of the newly installed pool to plant grass seed.

Build a Cabana

Complete a swimming pool or spa installation with an attractive, inexpensive pool cabana. Build a small 4-by-6-foot cabana with 2-by-4-foot pieces of lumber covered with heavy canvas stapled onto the frame, or grommetted and tied onto the frame with nylon or cotton rope. Add a couple of chaise lounge chairs and a patio table in front of the cabana, and a short bench inside for guests to sit on while changing into bathing suits or drying off after swimming. Finish the scene with a couple of large potted palms and hanging baskets filled with flowering plants on shepherd's hooks.

Oriental Scene

Keep the pool area uncluttered, but make it stylish with an Oriental scene. Plant hardy bamboo and ornamental grass as a backdrop, add a couple of cement Japanese lanterns and introduce some color with two or three flowering plants in patio containers. A stone Buddha and outdoor gong in a small Zen garden can enhance the peaceful mood.

Fire and Water

Add a stylish fire table or chiminea to a patio area for evening fires by the pool. Set up a firewood-and-tinder box, and set out a deck box with everything needed to start and tend a fire. Set tiki torches at corners of the pool for evening get-togethers.

Natural Stone

Use natural stone around the pool area for an earthy, undeveloped look for borders, corners and gardens. Use natural stone and rock to surround spas and whirlpools next to large pools. Build a descending grade and place natural stones to make a waterfall. Build a bubbling bird bath or fountain with natural stone mortared together around a solar-powered pump.