Not that you asked, but here's the stairs I'm working on. Note the last of the old stair steps towards the top. That was my short cut. I thought I could just notch out the dirt and slip in a paver. Which worked, for a while, but now I have to redo everything. Times three stairways. More to the point, yes, you made a mistake, because you're teaching yourself how to build a pool! We've all been there. You're doing great. If you hang around TFP for a while, you'll read nightmare stories of people that have made massive mistakes that have cost them 1000s or 10s of 1000s of dollars, and stalled their enjoyment of their pool for years! I've made a few of those myself, buying the wrong gear, or short-cutting my stupid stairs, or hiring the wrong guy. That last one cost about $9K!! I'm not minimizing your problem or stress, I'm just pointing out that you've made a relatively minor error, it's totally fixable, your pool is fine, you might get off with only a few hundred bucks, and in a week or two you're going to have an amazing pool! You're doing so much better than many. So hang in there!
PS. You and ya boy are going to be fine, splashing and laughing about this in a matter of days! Visualize it! It'll happen!
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Here's the first one I had to redo, what the other two will look like when finished.
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