The slogan for Richard's Total Backyard Solutions is "Changing Lives One Backyard at a Time."
"It's on our shirts, jackets, ballcaps," says Vice President Julie Richard. "Changing lives is the cornerstone of who we are. If someone has an older pool, and we can go in and help them revamp it, help them transform it — that alone changes lives."
In recent years, the award-winning pool builder and outdoor living company with three locations in the Houston area reaffirmed its commitment to renovating outdated and underused pools by marketing to neighborhoods with older homes. Richard estimates as many as 90% of the company's renovation clients did not use their old pool at all.
"It's wasted real estate," she says.
That certainly was the case with an Eighties-era backyard pool in the upscale Houston community of Piney Point Village. Its detailed renovation, completed in 2024, won bronze in the 2024 Awards of Excellence.
The homeowners had lived in Europe and wanted to renovate the pool and outdoor kitchen area to enhance the property's European-chic aesthetics. One major improvement involved demolishing the original spa spillway to create a new, fully wrapped spa spillover with vibrant blue glass tile. The darker existing coping and pool deck were power-washed to brighten them up and make them look brand new.
Finishing touches included new waterline tile to complement the spa, pebble plaster finish, a spacious seating area near the spa and a fully renovated outdoor kitchen that features an expansion designed to echo exterior elements of the home — such as high and spacious matching arches and a new ceramic tile tongue-and-groove roof. The renovation team also built a belltower on top of the outdoor kitchen addition, in which the homeowner placed a statue.
"Our projects are a collaboration between our designers and our clients," Richard says. "We get to know them and what they want. That's a big part of what we do, and then we create a palette of ideas."
For this project, that palette included what Richard refers to as "jewelry." The same blue glass tile that gives the pool line a sense of elegance delivers a different effect when installed as toe tiles on the edges of the pool-wide steps at the opposite end of the spa as well as on the steps that flank each side of the spa. Tile pieces also add vibrancy to the spa seats, where they are placed equidistant from each other on three sides.
"We put the bling in the pool," Richard says. "It adds that extra element that sets us apart. At a glance, everything comes across as very monochromatic, until you see the bling. Then — boom! — there's the jewelry."
COMPELLING COORDINATION
True to the company's name, Richard's Total Backyard Solutions also paid significant attention to the spaces surrounding the pool.
In addition to expanding the small kitchen island into a full-blown outdoor living space with open views of the pool and easy accessibility from the home via an arched glass entry, designers repurposed an underutilized space in the corner of the odd-shaped backyard. Located to the side of the kitchen and set back from the spa end of the pool, the decked patio is lined with matching continuous benching on two sides to provide an additional gathering area.
Crushed granite at the back end of the uncovered patio extends along the entire length of the yard and around the two sides of the pool deck not abutting the home and outdoor kitchen. This design element appears to create a natural grass island, separating the green space from the pool and the tall wooden fence that borders the backyard.
"The granite serves two purposes," Richard says. "The first is as a French drain and the second is for aesthetics. A lot of what we do is about design aesthetics. We're going to make sure it all coordinates."
Such coordination isn't evident only on the ground.
"The house's roof is ceramic tile, so what we did was carry on that design theme throughout, to the new pavilion area, to the arches and out into the pool itself."
Indeed, the tan colors of the pool deck and the dark brown colors of the side patio blend handsomely with the colors of the roof and even the home's exterior.
That's not to say this project didn't have its challenges, though. Given the tight backyard space, renovation crews needed to receive permission from the homeowner's neighbors to temporarily remove part of a fence.
"It was absolutely a challenge to get in and out of that backyard with equipment," Richard says. "We knew that going in, and we prepared for that. We try to look at every detail and work them out upfront. Another thing we do that other companies sometimes don't is give the homeowner the big picture of what to expect before we even begin. There will always be surprises in construction, but our goal is to minimize those surprises."
In pre-construction meetings, all parties involved — including the designer, the construction manager, the project manager and others — seek to mitigate any potential challenges as best they can. That, in turn, allows the homeowner to understand that even though the project might run into some snags along the way, the company has a plan to minimize disruption and seek solutions that make everyone happy in the end. Maybe even, as the company's slogan says, change lives.
It's clear that this particular project — at once simple and complex — is a gleaming example of how a pool renovation c
"We design, we build, and we see the project all the way through," Richard says, "from the beginning ideas until the magic is done."
This article first appeared in the March 2025 issue of AQUA Magazine — the top resource for retailers, builders and service pros in the pool and spa industry. Subscriptions to the print magazine are free to all industry professionals. Click here to subscribe.
