When I was a nanny in college, the family I nannied for had a pool by Anthony & Sylvan. So a year ago this month, when we decided we were going to build our own, I looked into it as well as four other companies and I met with each and every one of them. I was most impressed with Anthony & Sylvan. They really sold us on the whole thing they do at the bottom, the extra gravel, all of that, where a lot of the other companies were like ""Oh, you don't really need that."" And when we started to say Anthony does this, this, and this, they're like ""Okay, we can do that."" But, it wasn't their standard. Anyway, our pool is chlorine, in-ground, and free form. We went a little larger than the standard size, once we realized we could fit it - we love it. It's just a very strongly built pool.

This is what we liked with our pool: for one, the length; two, we went with a deep end in the middle, what's called athletic pool of only five feet because we wanted a usable pool. They worked with us on having a deep end in the middle and four feet on each end. What we really love, we just went with the basic, which is like if you're buying a loaded car, some cars are basic; they have a pretty good amount of things. Their basic pool without upgrade has high quality, from the coping to the plaster, standard chain with a bench depth on one end and another bench on the other end. That's all standard, and we just love the way the package came. We did upgrade a little more, worked it out with the subcontractor for extra concrete around the pool decking. The standard package really includes a lot.

It's beautiful. It's huge relaxation and it's also a huge social gathering. I'm into the daytime, hanging out, laying on a rest, swimming and volleyball; nighttime we have friends. We don't have children, so we do like to entertain. It will be used all summer day and night, and my job is slowest in the summer, so it's gonna be used heavily.

In the process, we always interacted with their people. There were never a schedule problem. They were right on schedule from the time they started. The first few delays that were not their fault, like when the gentleman who does the dig did not bring the copy of the building permit, so that held us back a couple of days. I dealt with ** regularly; he answers your calls immediately. I dealt with ** even beyond the sales part. If I called him not knowing you should be calling ** for that, he would still jump in and get to the bottom of what was going on with the project. ** came out and checked the progress. They are very communicative with when we'd expect certain steps done. We were never wondering what was gonna happen next or when.