If your summers are long and harsh, a swimming pool can be your treasure trove. It lets you escape into a cooler, more relaxing realm. Having a pool house next to your pool allows you to enjoy your pool in a serene setting.
A pool house is more than just for storing towels, goggles and inflatable floaties. When well designed and properly used, a pool house can be the ultimate spot to build the best summertime memories with your loved ones.
It can provide shade from the sun, and a place to host family lunches and other gatherings.
Keep reading below to learn about eight essentials for the perfect pool house.
1. Follow Your House’s Architectural Theme
A pool house is a part of your house, so make sure it has similar aesthetic and architectural cues. Use the same material and choose similar color tones. If your house is southern and rustic, a glamorous and modern pool house will look very awkward. Rather, a small cottage-like rustic pool house with wooden panels, a small fireplace and hanging flower pots would look beautiful.
2. Wide Open Sitting Space
You can also use a pool house on days you do not swim. An open-plan pool house with a spacious lounge, comfortable couches and cozy interiors would make the pool house excellent for hosting lunches, teas, brunches, dinner parties and intimate date nights.
You can eat, drink, play board games, watch a movie or just read a book. When you have an open floor plan, you can find multiple ways to use the space efficiently.
3. Bathroom
Nothing would be more annoying than having to skip out of the pool and go all the way to your house just for a pee break. The tip here is to build a functional bathroom inside your pool house.
Add a mirror, toilet, and sink, with essential bathroom toiletries to it can be used a powder room. If you want to go one step further, add a walk-in shower along with a dry changing area. Put hooks on the walls to ensure your clothes do not get wet.
4. Kitchen and Bar
Good hot food and a cold drink make any summer evening much better. Having a kitchen in your pool house would make you want to spend all your time there. Heat a meal or invite your friends for a home-cooked feast by the pool house. Eating with your loved ones next to the beautiful view of the pool will be therapeutic and relaxing.
Having a small bar would not only make your pool house look more chic but would also be super helpful when you host parties. Summers leave you dehydrated, and who wants that? Having a bar means you can make fruity cocktails and sip on cold beers as you spend your summer days in the pool, under the hot sun.
5. Fireplace
Who says pools and pool houses go to waste in the winters? It is all about using your space the right way.
Building a cozy and warm fireplace inside your pool house would make sure your love for your pool house is not seasonal. You can place a rung in front of your fireplace and read a book as you sip on hot coco. Or you could invite your friends and tell stories as you roast marshmallows for s’mores. It will be a small intimate winter getaway without having to actually go away.
A fireplace would also make your pool house perfect for a date night. Hot winter beverages, cozy fire, dim lights and a view of the still pool water. What could be more romantic than this?
6. Storage
A pool house does not only have to store your swimming essentials. When designed for different purposes, a pool house would essentially need to store lots of items.
A pool house would need cabinets to store cooking equipment, plates and silverware, and ingredients for the kitchen. It would need shelves to hold new towels, soap and shampoo. Bedsheets, pillowcases and couch covers would also need their own storage cabinets.
Hence, it would be best if you built storage cabinets wherever possible to utilize all free space for storage.
Nobody would like to walk into their house for every other little thing. A pool house will only be the pool house of your dreams if it has the storage space to carry all you could essentially need.
7. Electronics and Power Sockets
A pool house will be much cooler if it has all the electronic gadgets and built-in electrical systems you need.
For the ultimate pool house, make sure to get WIFI, an built-in stereo system, remote-controlled lighting, air conditioning, a television and video game console.
Your pool house would become your favorite retreat. Growing teenagers often demand their private space for their fun activities, and for them, such a pool house would be it.
8. Partial Coverage
Summer heat can be harsh. But let’s be honest, nobody wants summers to end without getting a great tan.
If lying under the bare sun is too painful, we suggest you build a pool house that has some part of it offering partial coverage. It could be a pergola-like extension to your pool house. It would limit the amount of sun light that comes through and would keep you from getting burnt as you get a tan.
It would also offer a great space for doing early morning yoga, and for hanging pots, plants and windchimes.
A well-built pool house adds value to your house and gives you a functional yet fun place to host get-togethers. So, make sure you design yours well to have all the essentials to make your pool house the ultimate spot for every season.
