Pool Design & Backyard Guide
10 High-Value Pool Features for Your Backyard
The best pool features aren't always the flashiest ones. They're the upgrades that make your backyard easier to use, more comfortable, more inviting, or more enjoyable year after year. Here are the features worth considering before the concrete is poured.
Before You Start Adding Extras
Value Is More Than Resale Value
When we call a pool feature high value, we're looking at more than what it may add to a future sale price. A strong upgrade should improve at least one part of everyday pool ownership: comfort, convenience, entertainment, safety, energy use, or how often you actually use the backyard.
Daily Use
Will you actually use the feature throughout the swimming season, or will it mostly look impressive in photographs?
Ease of Ownership
Automation, efficient equipment, covers, and other practical features can make owning the pool easier long after the novelty wears off.
Backyard Appeal
Well-integrated lighting, hardscape, seating, spas, and outdoor living areas can make the entire property feel more complete.
Future Flexibility
Some features are much easier and cheaper to plan during initial construction than to retrofit several years later.
Build for your lifestyle first
Resale is worth considering, but don't spend thousands of dollars on a feature you don't actually want just because it might impress a future buyer. The strongest backyard usually feels intentionally designed for the people living there now.
At a Glance
Pool Features Worth Considering First
Your priorities may change the ranking, but this is a strong starting point for homeowners trying to balance lifestyle, convenience, aesthetics, and long-term usefulness.
| Feature | Main Value | Best For |
|---|---|---|
| Tanning Ledge | Comfort + versatility | Lounging, families, resort-style pools |
| LED Lighting | Nighttime use + appearance | Almost any pool |
| Smart Automation | Convenience | Busy homeowners |
| Attached Spa | Relaxation + extended use | Year-round backyard use |
| Pool Heater | Longer swim season | Cool spring and fall evenings |
| Water Features | Ambiance + design | Resort-style backyards |
| Outdoor Kitchen | Entertainment | Homeowners who host often |
| Fire Feature | Evening comfort + gathering | Outdoor entertaining |
| Shade / Pavilion | Comfort + usable space | Hot-weather backyard use |
| Quality Decking / Hardscape | Function + finished appearance | Everyday pool use |
Feature #1
Tanning Ledge: One of the Most Versatile Pool Upgrades
Also called a sun shelf or Baja shelf, a tanning ledge is a large shallow platform built into the pool. It gives you a place to lounge in the water without fully swimming and can completely change how the shallow end gets used.
Why It Adds Value
A tanning ledge works for in-pool loungers, supervised splash time for younger swimmers, sitting in the water, umbrella sleeves, bubblers, and simply cooling off without getting fully submerged. It's one of those features that can actually get used every sunny day.
Feature #2
LED Lighting: Make the Backyard Useful After Sunset
Lighting isn't only decorative. Properly planned pool, step, path, deck, and landscape lighting improves visibility and can transform how the backyard feels at night.
Underwater Lighting
LED pool lights illuminate swimming areas and can turn the pool itself into the visual centerpiece of the backyard after dark.
Landscape Lighting
Path, step, tree, wall, and architectural lighting helps connect the pool to the rest of the backyard rather than leaving a bright pool surrounded by darkness.
Plan lighting as a system
The goal isn't to make the backyard look like a football stadium. Use several layers of lower-intensity light to improve visibility, highlight landscaping, and create atmosphere.
Feature #3
Smart Automation: The Feature You May Appreciate Every Week
Automation isn't the most dramatic feature to show your neighbors, but it can be one of the most practical. Modern systems can put pumps, heaters, lights, schedules, sanitation equipment, and water features under one control system.
Why It Adds Value
Instead of walking to the equipment pad every time you want to change a setting, compatible automation can allow you to schedule equipment and control major pool functions from a phone or centralized panel.
Features #4 & #5
Attached Spa & Heating: Get More Months From the Backyard
A beautiful pool that sits unused for much of the year doesn't deliver much lifestyle value during those months. Heating and spa features can extend how often the backyard is actually enjoyed.
Attached Spa
An integrated spa creates a separate relaxation zone, adds warm-water use beyond the main swimming season, and can become a year-round gathering point.
Pool Heater
A heater can make spring and fall swimming far more realistic instead of waiting for outdoor temperatures to naturally warm the pool to a comfortable level.
Plan these early
Heaters and spas affect plumbing, gas or electrical capacity, equipment sizing, automation, and operating costs. They're much easier to account for during the initial system design.
Feature #6
Water Features: Add Movement, Sound & Character
Waterfalls, bubblers, deck jets, fountains, spillways, and sheer descents can make a simple pool feel more intentional and resort-like.
Bubblers
Especially effective on tanning ledges and shallow shelves. They add movement without taking over the entire design.
Spillways & Waterfalls
Useful for connecting raised spas, walls, or landscape elements to the pool while introducing the relaxing sound of moving water.
Deck Jets
Arcing streams of water add movement and visual interest while using very little physical space around the pool.
Sheer Descents
A clean sheet of falling water works especially well in modern or geometric pool designs.
More isn't always better
One well-placed water feature usually looks more intentional than several unrelated features competing for attention. Let the architecture and landscape guide the design.
Feature #7
Outdoor Kitchen: Turn the Pool Area Into a Real Entertainment Space
If you regularly host friends or family, an outdoor kitchen can change the pool area from a place people swim into a place people spend an entire afternoon or evening.
Start With How You Cook
A grill and useful counter space may deliver more value than filling the kitchen with appliances you rarely use.
Add Convenience Carefully
Refrigeration, sinks, pizza ovens, storage, bar seating, side burners, and ice makers can make sense when they match how you actually entertain.
Design it with the pool when possible
Gas, water, electrical service, drainage, shade structures, traffic flow, and decking are easier to coordinate before the backyard is already finished.
Explore outdoor kitchens from American Pool Techs →
Feature #8
Fire Features: Give People Somewhere to Gather After Swimming
Pools naturally dominate warm afternoons. A fire pit, outdoor fireplace, or pool-edge fire feature can help the backyard stay inviting after the sun goes down or temperatures cool.
Fire Pit
Works especially well as a separate seating zone where guests can gather without sitting directly beside the pool.
Outdoor Fireplace
Creates a stronger architectural focal point and can anchor a pavilion or outdoor living room.
Fire Bowls
Useful when the goal is visual drama around the pool rather than creating an additional seating area.
Fire + Water
Combining a spillway with a fire element creates a striking feature, but it works best when designed into the overall pool rather than added randomly.
Explore fireplaces & fire pits from Aloha →
Feature #9
Pavilion, Pergola or Cabana: Don't Forget About Shade
The pool gets the attention, but shade can determine how long people actually want to stay outside during a hot Tennessee afternoon. A comfortable shaded zone can be one of the most practical backyard investments.
Pavilion
A covered structure can protect seating, televisions, outdoor kitchens, lighting and fans while creating a true outdoor room.
Pergola
A pergola defines an outdoor zone while keeping a more open-air feel. Modern systems can also incorporate adjustable or motorized louvers.
Comfort creates usage
If the patio becomes unbearable every afternoon because there's nowhere to escape the sun, even a beautiful pool may get used less than you expected.
Explore pavilions & shade structures from American Pool Techs →
Feature #10
Quality Decking: The Feature You're Standing on Every Day
Decking isn't an exciting gadget, but it's one of the most-used parts of the backyard. The right surface affects drainage, comfort, safety, furniture placement, traffic flow, and how finished the entire project looks.
Prioritize Drainage
Beautiful decking is much less appealing if water constantly collects around the pool or drains toward the house.
Think About Heat
Some surfaces become much hotter than others in direct summer sun. That matters when people are walking barefoot around the pool.
Use Enough Decking
A pool can feel cramped when there's nowhere to place loungers, tables, umbrellas, or move comfortably around the water.
Match the House
The best pool deck usually feels connected to the home's architecture instead of looking like a completely separate project.
Bonus Feature
Don't Build Great Spaces and Then Furnish Them as an Afterthought
A tanning ledge without the right in-pool furniture or a beautiful patio without comfortable seating can leave an otherwise thoughtful design feeling unfinished.
In-Pool Furniture
Furniture designed specifically for shallow shelves can turn a tanning ledge into one of the most-used parts of the pool.
Outdoor Seating
Choose materials designed for outdoor moisture, sunlight and temperature changes rather than treating patio furniture like indoor furniture with a different fabric.
Build Around Your Priorities
Choose Features Based on How You'll Use the Backyard
You don't need every feature on this list. In fact, a backyard with four well-chosen upgrades usually makes more sense than one packed with expensive extras that compete with each other.
| Your Priority | Features to Consider First |
|---|---|
| Relaxation | Tanning ledge, attached spa, water feature, shade |
| Entertaining | Outdoor kitchen, pavilion, fire pit, lighting |
| Family Use | Tanning ledge, steps, benches, lighting, safety features |
| Convenience | Automation, efficient equipment, cleaner, automatic cover |
| Nighttime Use | LED lighting, fire feature, spa, pavilion lighting |
| Resort Feel | Water features, spa, sun shelf, lighting, coordinated landscaping |
| Long Swim Season | Pool heater, spa, fire feature, covered outdoor space |
Plan Ahead
Some Features Are Much Easier to Add Before Construction Ends
You can remodel almost anything eventually, but plumbing, electrical service, gas lines, structural shelves, drainage, automation wiring and decking are easier to coordinate while the backyard is already under construction.
You don't necessarily have to buy everything now
If the budget is tight, ask your builder whether it makes sense to rough-in plumbing, gas, electrical or control wiring for a future feature. Preparing now can make a later upgrade much easier.
The Bottom Line
Spend on the Features You'll Actually Use
If you're starting from scratch, tanning ledges, good lighting,
smart automation, thoughtful decking, and either a spa or heating
system are some of the strongest places to begin because they
improve everyday use rather than simply adding decoration.
From there, think about your lifestyle. Homeowners who entertain
may get far more value from an outdoor kitchen, pavilion, and fire pit.
Someone building a quiet backyard retreat may prefer a spa,
waterfall, tanning ledge, and landscape lighting.
The goal isn't to build the pool with the longest feature list.
It's to build the backyard you keep finding reasons to use.
Plan Your Backyard
Ready to Explore Pool & Outdoor Living Options?
Compare West Tennessee pool professionals or explore more pool-buying guides before deciding which features make sense for your backyard, lifestyle, and budget.
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