Hot tub redo done! (How to make an old hot tub look new)

Hello friends! I hope you had a blessed holiday season. It was definitely one of my favorite Christmases ever. I thoroughly enjoyed the time spent with family and friends. The older I get, the more I cherish these moments together.

Today I wanted to share photos of our finished hot tub project! A few months ago, we purchased a used hot tub for $600 from a friend of a church friend.

We installed a paver patio for our “new” hot tub first. Then I stained the outside of the hot tub cabinet and did some landscaping to finish off our new backyard oasis. I chronicled the specific details of how we did these projects here:

Here’s what we started with:

leveling-hot-tub-base

hot-tub-base staining-hot-tub And here’s what we’ve got now:

stained-hot-tub

backyard-hot-tub

In addition to doing the paver patio ourselves, we also tried to keep the landscaping budget as low as possible. We’ll still need to bring in a little topsoil and seed in the spring to get the area looking its best. The cost breakdown to date is as follows (approx.):

  • 4-6-person California Cooperage® Hot Tub – $600 (purchased used from a homeowner and picked up)
  • Stain for hot tub cabinet – $12
  • Paver patio – $1,000 (We have extra pavers on hand to do some more hardscaping in the future.)
  • Landscape fabric (already had on hand)
  • Edging – $20
  • 2B (that’s the size) river rock – $60
  • Trees and shrubs – $300
  • Electrical supplies to hook up hot tub – $150
  • Stumps and large rock accents (already had on hand in our woods) 🙂

Total project cost = $2,142

restained-hot-tub hot-tub-restain-1

Below you can see where we decided to end the paver patio and allow some room for landscaping against the house.

hot-tub-landscaping-2 hot-tub-landscaping

While this project definitely cost us some significant time and money, we feel it was well worth the effort. Our family gets in the hot tub together nearly every evening. It’s a great time of bonding for us, and it sure beats watching TV! Plus we know we saved a ton of money purchasing a used hot tub and installing it ourselves. A new hot tub of this size would begin at about $5,000, not counting the cost of the patio, landscaping, electrical supplies, etc.

california-cooperage-hot-tub-4-person

What do you think of our “new” hot tub?

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9 Responses

  1. Patricia says:

    Wow what a great job!! Missed seeing your posts!!

  2. Helen Richie says:

    Susan,
    I just found your Blog and Podcasts. What a blessing to me! Thank you for sharing your knowledge and perspective. I look forward to getting to know you better in 2017!

  3. Julia Murphy says:

    Susan, finding both of your hot tub posts was a God sign for us! ???? We found a used round tub for 400.00. we have a small area to dig down, level and sand in. Untill we found your post, we thought we had no choice except to lay the more expensive concrete pad. Since we are on a tight budget, we are re purposing pavers we already have! So thank you for posting how you did it and the after!!

  4. M says:

    This is super Helpful! My husband And I also got a hot tub through a college, and we are in the process of preparing our end of the Patio/yard for this 7 person Cooperage hot tub! Love the landscaping idea! I wish i had the space for it , but all ‘n’ all This was helpful!
    We are using a 3 layer tactic of: crushed rock, stone and Sand. We cut out the end of our patio so it makes the illusion of having the Hot tub ‘sunk in our patio’. we are very excited!

    • Susan says:

      Sounds like a wonderful project. Hope you can enjoy your hot tub very soon. The weather is getting perfect for it. Thanks for sharing. 🙂

  5. Lynda Tran says:

    Looks amazing! How did you hide the wooden frame after? Was it flush with the stones or just under?

    • Matthew says:

      There really is no wooden frame, per se. The hot tub itself just sits on top of the pavers. You can’t really see the wooden frame of the hot tub at all. Hope that is helpful.

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