Last May, I stood on a bare 9×12 concrete slab in Austin with nothing but two rusty folding chairs and a relentless afternoon sun reflecting off the sliding glass door. After spending two weekends and under $320 crafting a slatted…

A reader emailed me last spring, discouraged because every “backyard pool ideas” list she found showed sprawling resort-style pools that clearly wouldn’t fit her narrow, sloped city lot. She assumed a pool simply wasn’t possible for her yard. We ended…