Small Swimming Pool Ideas

A small pool provides a refreshing retreat in a limited space.pool image by Yuri Osadchi from Fotolia.com

Small swimming pools provide a relaxing and refreshing escape in areas with limited space. The key to small swimming pools is to use a simple design that maximizes the available space. For example, a small pool with a fountain in the middle breaks up the swimming area and turns most of the pool into useless space. You want to use decorative elements around the pool, not in the water.

Bathroom Pool

As long as your local zoning laws allow it, you can add a small swimming pool inside your home for year-round use. A simple, white-tiled, 10-foot long and 5-foot wide pool along a bathroom wall turns a functional room into a luxurious getaway. Pool "treadmill" machines can turn even the smallest pool into a place to swim by providing water resistance you swim against without having to move forward.

Add a true spa feel to the bathroom pool with tumbled marble tiles and a "Roman" style. A rectangular pool with small, square, tumbled, cream marble tiles along the floors, walls and deck provides a basic old-world look. Marble steps lead into the pool on one short side and a marble statue decorates the second short side for an ancient Roman feel.

Tuck a thin rectangular pool into a corner of your yard to create a private getaway where you can swim, soak and relax. The basic pool consists of pale aqua tile on the floor/walls and a small ladder at one end. Alternating pale aqua and sand brown tiles creates a 4-foot-wide deck around the pool for sunbathing. Thin flowerbeds decorate the two short and one long side of the pool deck, leaving the second long side open as a walkway.

Personal lap pools are long, thin areas just big enough for a single person to swim laps. You can position the pool along a fence to keep the long rectangle from breaking up your yard. The basic pool consists of cobalt blue floor tiles and white wall tiles with a 1-foot wide, white brick deck. A large, blue plant pot filled with an evergreen shrub at each short end of the pool provides a decorative frame for the simple pool silhouette.

Replace the fence along the back of a personal lap pool with a stone wall to give the area a fancy style. For example, a pool with light granite tiles and a light granite wall look like a single structure. Piping in the walls and decorative spouts on the side that trickle water into the pool give the area a fancy fountain appearance.

Give a small pool a natural pond appearance to turn it into the centerpiece of your yard. A small, kidney-shaped pool provides an open area for swimming and has gentle lines that create a natural silhouette. The pool consists of a smooth, faux pebble finish on the floors, walls and thin deck. Lush grass and wildflowers around the deck area preserve the natural pond appearance.