For future consideration, any recommendations and/or thoughts on an above ground pool? I'll do my research beforehand, but always value others thoughts and opinions.

Thanks in advance!

We bought a smaller one last year on sale. Best money ever spent. As adults we get in it more than the kids but they still use it a lot. We've slowly been adding stuff like steps and fake turf over the last year. We keep umbrellas over it to keep the water cool.

What did you end up getting? Also, did you do anything to prepare? And how do you maintain?

We got a bestway pool from Walmart. What we did to set up versus what we wished we would have done is completely different but like I said we were trying to not spend a ton of money all at once. We leveled the yard and set the pool. We wish we would have leveled it and got ALL the fake turf down first versus patching it after the fact but that stuff is $$. We are also dealing with sprinklers and a fence line we hate and know that will be replaced but the neighbor isn't willing to mess with it right now. We kept it full during winter, covered and just made sure pump was running some and had chlorine in it. We splurged and got the roomba version of a vacuum this year bc the chargeable stick versions suck. The biggest thing is keeping it covered and cool otherwise it's warm and gross. I just asked Mr. Diesel if he had anything to add and he just repeated that he wished he would have turfed the entire area first.

Maintenance is pretty easy. It can get cloudy sometimes especially in this heat and we just shock and clean the filter out a lot. We also have to add baking soda a lot because of our water. It really doesn't take a lot and it's nothing test strips and google can't solve.