I have just had the same dilemma re waterline tiles and I realised two things (if it helps)... Firstly it's the colour of the coping that I needed to match to, or compliment, the tile. And secondly, the colour of the tile matters if your pool is fully tiled, but if you are going with pebblecrete, then it's the colour of the pebblecrete that affects the colour of the pool and not the tile! First time pool builder, so who knew?! My fingers did do a lot of googling to decide on pebblecrete colours though. Good luck!

When we see green water, we humans tend to think of algae or mould - it's hard to change that way of thinking. A pale , sandy pebblecrete will look like a sandy lagoon, whereas a blue will be more eye-catching. We replaced the second liner of our pool with blue tiles . It's quite a large pool, so we went for a dark blue, I still love the colour nearly ten years later.

Hi Angela, the whole job took a month but there was much digging needed and a concrete slab to be poured. We are so happy with the results. The travertine stuck to the pebble crete just fine and it really is a non - slippery surface when wet. We got bluestone steppers to the pool and they are noticeably more slippery.

I would recommend that you have a discussion with a professional with knowledge of natural swimming pools as there may be a chance that you can convert your existing pool. It seems that the shelf lends itself to planting ( with a bit of adjustment). You could potentially add some deeper level water plants in areas outside the perimeter of the pool if this is required to provide the full filtration environment for a natural pool. Access can be via a timber platform to traverse the shelf area. The waterfall area would be much less of an eye sore once integrated with plants and some clever placement of rocks. I think you have a very exciting opportunity here to create something special.