Glass mosaic
1 inch, blended blues, on a mesh sheet
The most expensive square foot on the list and the only one that changes colour as the light moves. Worth it on a waterline, hard to justify on a whole wall.
Six surfaces, and only two of them are decisions.
A renovation is mostly one choice about the inside of the shell and one about the edge you put your hands on. Everything else follows from those two. Here is the board, at the sizes the samples actually come in, with what each one is bad at written next to what it is good at.
Waterline tile
6 by 6, glazed, single colour
What most pools have and what most pools should have. It takes the scrubbing, and a single colour means a replaced tile in year six is not a visible repair.
Pebble finish
small aggregate, mid grey
Rough enough to grip, and it hides the staining that shows on a pale plaster within two seasons. It is also the finish people mean when they say a pool feels newer than it is.
White plaster
standard, trowelled
The brightest water you can get and the shortest life on this board. It is the right answer when the pool is going to be resurfaced again anyway and the wrong one when it is not.
Travertine coping
bullnose, 12 by 24
Stays cool underfoot in full sun, which is the entire argument for it. It wants sealing and it will show a ring if the water chemistry drifts.
Clay paver deck
running bond, unsealed
The colour on the deck of this website. It gets warm, it does not get slippery, and a cracked paver is one paver rather than a section of slab.
The four decisions, in the order they get made.
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Resurface or Replaster
The same job under two names, and the difference is only how far back the old surface is taken. If the shell is sound and the finish is worn, the cheaper answer is genuinely the right one. If there is movement in the shell, a new surface over it buys you one season and you pay twice.
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Waterline only or Full wall tile
A waterline band is what nine pools in ten need, because that is where the scrubbing and the scale happen. Tiling a whole wall is a look rather than a repair, and it roughly triples the tile line on the quote.
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Keep the coping or Replace the coping
Coping usually survives a resurface and usually does not survive being lifted, so this decision is made once. If more than about a fifth of it is loose it is cheaper to take the lot than to match new stone to old.
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Same shape or Change the shape
Changing a pool’s outline means the shell, the plumbing and the deck, and it is a different order of work with a different permit conversation. We will say plainly when what you want is a new pool wearing the words “a renovation”.
We will not put a number on this page.
A renovation price is the square footage of your shell, the state of your coping and what the deck is going to need once the machinery is off it. Any figure printed here would be a guess dressed as a quote, and you would find that out at the worst moment. Send a photograph of the waterline and one of the deck at the shallow end and we can tell you which of the four decisions above you are actually facing.