The Thornton family pretty much has a go big or go home attitude — especially when it comes to putting in a backyard pool!

Born and raised in Covington, Tennessee, Micky Thornton has always had big dreams of an awesome backyard pool. Dedicating his childhood, and much of his adulthood, to creating one of the most incredible DIY backyard pool masterpieces, EVER!

This project was so important to Micky, mainly because he has been designing it in his head since he was 9-years-old.

When Thornton was 39 -years-old, he knew that it was time to start building his dream pool. Back on Labor Day 1993, Thornton first decided that he was going to make the ultimate DIY dream pool. Except this pool was going to be a pond. The pond started at 20-feet deep and lined with a polyethylene mat.

By 2017 the pool had essentially turned into what was an aquatic playground. This masterpiece used 40,000 pounds of steel rebar, 320 yards of cement, it featured rock-lined waterfalls and contains half a million gallons of water.

When the backyard ‘getaway’ was finished, it became incredibly popular with local residents, so much so, that people starting asking Thornton if they could pay to go swim there!

Eventually, the Thornton family started setting up regular donation prices for attendees. The Thornton’s pool was now available to the public. People are now able to reserve the DIY pool for athletic teams, birthday parties, weddings, and even baptisms.

Thornton’s wife, Jane Thornton, said that she’s received offers from the Japanese national baseball team to come use the pool. She states that she was expecting maybe 25 people total to come. However, much to her surprise, the team brought more than 50 people for a little fun in the pool.

The pool can be quite costly to keep up however, but over the years Thornton has continued to make changes to the backyard setup in order to keep costs down. Donations do help with the upkeep costs.

How much did this all cost?

Thornton never specifically said how much the project cost him, but there have been similar projects. On such project in Alberta, Canada, the Leussinks DIY pool project, consists of 31,700-gallons of water. Using similar materials and the same concept, it cost them around $15,000. However, this project focused on pool length instead of depth. The Leussinks is only 14 feet deep, whereas Thornton’s is 20. The additional water most likely would add to the cost. In the end, it’s difficult to know the exact price but its probably safe to say that it wasn’t cheap.

In case you’re wondering, we’re not sure if the Thornton’s DIY pool masterpiece is still available to the public. Yes, the family was still offering its pool to the community, and it has garnered excellent reviews over the years.