Painted Swimming Pool – How It’s Holding Up One Year Later

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Last year we shared how we painted our above ground swimming pool. It was a super easy project, it took about two hours to do, and one can of paint! And our pool looked so, so much better! It’s still one of my favorite projects that we’ve done – such a big impact with just a little bit of work! We weren’t sure how the pool would hold up over the year. We get quite a bit of rain in the spring and fall (but not recently as you can see from the half-dead grass in these photos 🥴), and a lot of snow in the winter. Our pool is finally open and I wanted to give an update on how it’s held up since we painted it a year ago.

That’s been one of our top questions the last couple of months – how the painted pool has held up. Sadly for us it’s a very short swim season here, our pool has only been open for a few weeks! We had people asking months ago, and it was hard to get a good idea of how it really was with snow still around it and the cover on. 😆 Now that the pool is finally open, I can give an accurate update with some photos!

How did it hold up?

Overall, really good! I would definitely recommend this project to anyone. We used one coat of paint, and even with just one coat, it held up well. There are some little dings and chips in the paint – I think our spots mainly happen from the boys not paying enough attention while mowing the lawn and rocks hitting the side. 🙄 Mike also used some leftover rocks we had from our addition to create a rock border around the pool, and wasn’t being super careful while putting them around, and created some small marks too. 🥴

You can see a close up of what those chips look like where it’s the worst in a photo below. I’ll put in a before and after photo below too of what the pool looked like before we painted it. From far away though, the pool looks great and I’m still so happy with it!

A before and after of the pool: (to see what we used and how we did it, check out this post)

You can watch a video of the process here:

Would we do anything different?

I would say no, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t better ways to do it. We’re just really happy with it and not perfectionists about our backyard! I think doing two coats might help get better coverage that would hold up so it wouldn’t get the small chips as easily. We definitely will touch ours up at some point, right now we’re still working away on the kitchen renovation, so it’s not high priority. Not sure if we’ll do another full coat, or just touch up the spots that need it. And hopefully one of these years we’ll get around to building a little deck for the pool and some nice landscaping around it! 😉

The full details for how to paint the pool can be found here. And if you’re looking for some fun projects for your pool, check out our DIY pool float holder and DIY floating pool tray!

And if you paint your pool, we’d love to see it – feel free to tag us or message us on Instagram (@themerrythought), or email a photo to us!

-Manda