From Empty Backyard to First Cannonball: Building a Pool in Northwest Arkansas
There’s a moment we get to witness on every single project, and it never gets old.
It’s the first cannonball. Usually a kid, sometimes a dad who couldn’t wait, launching off the edge into water that — just a few weeks earlier — was a patch of Bermuda grass and Ozark clay. The whole family is standing around the deck, phones out, somebody’s laughing, and a Northwest Arkansas backyard has officially become the backyard. The one where the summers happen now.
We’re Chris and Marsha, and we started Advanced Pools & Spas to build those moments for our neighbors. Not just pools — backyards your family actually lives in. Here’s what the journey really feels like, from the first handshake to that first splash.
It starts in your yard, not a showroom
We don’t hand you a catalog and ask you to pick a shape. We come stand in your backyard with you.
We walk the space, look at where the afternoon sun lands, notice the slope down toward the tree line, talk about how your family actually spends time outside. Are the kids going to live in this pool all summer? Is this where you’ll host the Fourth of July? Do you want to watch the sunset over the hills with a glass of something while the spa bubbles?
Then we do something we love: we stake the footprint right on your grass. Suddenly it’s not an idea anymore. You can stand where the steps will be, see exactly where the spa falls, walk the deck before a shovel ever touches the ground. People get quiet, and then they get excited. That’s our favorite part.
Every build starts in your yard, not on a catalog page. See our full step-by-step process here.
Then we dig — and yes, we hit rock
This is Northwest Arkansas, so let’s be honest about the build phase: it’s the messy, loud, exciting middle. Our crews — our crews, the same faces every day, not a rotating cast of subcontractors — excavate the hole, set the structural steel, run the plumbing, and shoot the shell.
And somewhere in there, on a lot of NWA lots, the excavator finds limestone. That’s just life in the Ozarks. We’ve been doing this long enough that rock and slope don’t rattle us; they’re Tuesday. We’ll keep you in the loop the whole way, because your backyard being torn up is a leap of faith, and we don’t take that lightly.
It’s dusty. There are trucks. And then one day you look out the window and there’s the actual shape of your pool sitting in the ground, and it gets real all over again.
The finish: where a hole becomes a pool
This is the stretch that turns a gray concrete shell into the thing you’ve been picturing. Coping and decking go in. The tile work happens. We set the equipment, then fill it, balance the chemistry, and fire up every system — heater, filter, pump, the lights that’ll glow blue on August nights.
Watching a pool fill for the first time does something to people. We’ve seen homeowners just stand there with their coffee, watching the water rise, grinning like kids. After all the dust and waiting, there it is.
And then — the part we built it all for
Here’s the thing nobody tells you: we don’t really sell pools. We sell the years that happen around them.
The birthday parties. The Saturday where eleven neighborhood kids somehow end up in your backyard. The quiet weeknight after a long day when you and your spouse just float. The grandkids who’ll only ever know this as the house with the pool. The cannonball.
And we don’t disappear after that first swim, either. We’re local — your neighbors in NWA — so when something needs a tune-up or you’ve got a question three summers from now, you’re calling the same people who built it. Our maintenance team keeps your water crystal-clear, and we’re a phone call away for the life of the pool.
Your backyard is waiting
If you’ve been driving past finished pools around Bentonville, Rogers, Fayetteville, and Springdale thinking maybe someday — let’s at least walk your yard together. No pressure, no obligation, just an honest conversation about what’s possible in your space.
Request a free consultation or call us at (479) 442-7717. We serve all of Northwest Arkansas, including Centerton, Cave Springs, Bella Vista, and Pea Ridge.
Come see our recent builds, exactly how we work, and the questions our neighbors ask most. We’d be honored to build your family’s next ten summers.
— Chris & Marsha, Advanced Pools & Spas