When you get older and your back hurts every day just because you are alive and not because you did anything to it, you may want to get your own hot tub. Choosing a hot tub and orchestrating its installation isn't easy, but lucky for you, Youngest Sister is here to help with this step-by-step guide. Read these easy-to-follow instructions, then watch the video, and you could be sitting in your own hot tub in under 9 months!

CHOOSE THE HOT TUB

Go to a hot tub expo to look at the small, reasonably priced hot tubs, then purchase a big-ass combination pool and hot tub instead. If you want to spend as much money as possible, go for the Michael Phelps Signature Swim Spa. Listen to the salesman when he gives the spiel about how Michael Phelps can swim the butterfly stroke in the endless pool. Muse that you don’t care if Ryan Lochte and his whole relay team can swim in the pool at once, because you just want to sit in the hot tub and drink a glass of wine when your back hurts.

© 2016, Michael Phelps Swim Spas by Master Spas

CHOOSE THE ARCHITECT

This is my SketchUp design. Matt the Architect drew it better.

Since you bought such a big-ass swim spa instead of the little hot tub you can put on the porch, you'll need an architect to design a porch to go around it. If you have a friend you play tennis with who is an architect, pick him. We chose Matt the Architect, whom you may remember is the guy who has a Sonny Crockett 3-day-beard without even trying, but a clean-shaven architect would probably work just as well. Decide that you too could be an architect, and draw your own plans using Google SketchUp, which is fun and free CAD (computer-assisted design) software that lets you make 3-D models of things.

Just for fun, add a feature that no one on your construction team has ever attempted – a retractable deck/pool cover - because the worst thing about a hot tub is the cover. Have you ever noticed that ads for hot tubs always look like this?

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Notice that there's not a cover in sight. Unless you live in the tropics, you have to put a cover on a hot tub. Hot tub covers are heavy and vinyl and they are unsightly. I know myself well enough to know that, if I had to take some big-ass cover off of the big-ass pool spa every time I wanted to use it, I wouldn't use it at all. Because I'm lazy that way. So this retractable cover is a must.

SOURCE THE COVER

Because your favorite expression is, "If I'm thinking of it, it has already been done," you know retractable deck/pool covers must exist. Search the web, Pinterest and YouTube to find companies in South Africa, Australia, Israel, England and Italy, but none in the U.S. Choose the Italian company, Egoè Luxury Spas, and have Matt the Architect communicate with them via 78 emails over 5 months using Google Translate. Cross your fingers that nothing is lost in translation. Start to give some thought to how you are going to pay for this.

INSTALL THE POOL SPA

Pour a huge concrete pad where you want the pool spa to go, then let it cure for several weeks. Tear the stairs off of your porch and put boards across the opening, to keep your Jack Russells from accidentally taking a fatal concrete plunge whilst chasing deer.

Matt's birthday cake with young Matt mounted on foam core board.

Set a date to have the pool spa delivered by a crew of five really big guys from North Carolina. For a bonus, plan the delivery to be on Matt the Architect's birthday, because there is nowhere he would rather be on his birthday than supervising installation of your big-ass pool spa. Make it up to him by having his wife Meredith send you a picture of him when he was small so that you can mount it on foam core board and put it on a cake for him. Get the cake at Whole Foods because, even though their bread needs salt and is not very good, their cakes are amazing.

When the team of big-ass guys come to deliver the big-ass pool spa, get your camera ready. There is quite a lot of standing around to be done when people set out to move a 2,500 lb. swim spa from a truck to a concrete pad, but once they get going they mean business. Hold your breath when it looks like it might tumble down the hill. Repeat as needed, breathing deeply during each break in the action to avoid fainting.

BUILD THE DECK

Once the pool spa is in place, build a deck around it. Have the contractor deliver a portable toilet at least a month before the building begins so that you can start enjoying the construction vibe as soon as possible. Make sure you are not at home when it comes so that it will be placed directly across from your front door where your visitors park, then get your husband to put a fork lift on his tractor and move it so it is the first thing visitors see when they enter your driveway. Although the deck can be built in under two weeks, if you are careful, you will be able to stretch the job out so that it lasts until November. Don't worry about following Matt the Architect's plans very closely because that's what change orders are for. Remind yourself that you have never finished a construction project anywhere close to budget, so why start now?

THE COVER

Wire a really big payment to the Italian people, then lie awake at night wondering if you got scammed and will never see your money or the cover. Fall asleep after reassuring yourself that the people who invented pasta are good and honest folks who would never scam you. Wake up in a cold sweat after realizing some of those same people also invented the mafia. Breathe easy when they send you a photo of your custom pool cover ready to be loaded on the boat. Plan delivery activities around the date when the ship carrying the cover is guaranteed to arrive in port. Surf the web to get a better understanding of what "guaranteed" means to shipping importers.

When given the option of whether to install the bespoke deck/pool cover yourself or to have a team of Italians come to do it, pick the latter because no American electrician will ever be able to understand what's supposed to happen inside that control panel. When you find out the Italian installers speak zero English, start asking your friends if they know anyone who speaks Italian. Enlist the help of Peter’s friend Diego, an Italian-born beekeeper/wine expert, to meet the Italians at the airport and then later serve as interpreter. Arrange for a crane to lift the 2,500 pound deck/pool cover OVER your house and deftly place it on top of the pool spa. Call your physician to request a prescription for Ambien because you won't be sleeping until this is over.

THE CRANE

Notify your friends that they should come watch the big-ass crane place the big-ass Italian deck/pool cover on your big-ass pool spa because it's going to be a spectacle. For a bonus, get your nudist gardener neighbor to come out to the street wearing nothing but a thong to see what all the hubbub is about. This will ensure that the event will be even more of a spectacle than you had planned. If you are someone who gets nervous watching people move your piano from a truck into your living room, brace yourself, because this is an order of magnitude scarier than that. Video the event, taking care not to pee in your pants when the top starts spinning perilously close to the roof of your house. Import all of the videos into Windows Movie Maker, then speed it up to 8x normal. Post the video to your YouTube channel then get in the hot tub with a glass of wine.

See? Wasn't that easy? Watch the video and it will all make perfect sense:

Disclaimer: As always, advice you receive here is worth precisely what you paid for it.

How to install a swim spa