Published June 13, 2026
The first big liner decision is usually full-floor versus bordered. A full-floor liner uses one pattern from top to bottom, which creates a cleaner and often more modern look. A bordered liner adds a defined band at the waterline and can give the pool more contrast and structure.
Homeowners often try to choose from a single thumbnail on a phone or from a flat sample held in different lighting. That can be misleading. Under water, color shifts. Across the full pool, scale shifts. Seeing samples side by side in the showroom helps because you can compare them the way people actually experience them: against light, against coping, and against each other.
Thickness is the other place people get tripped up. Pool liners are measured in MIL, not gauge. One mil is one-thousandth of an inch. Gauge does not translate one-to-one, so a liner described as 30 gauge is really 26 mil. That is why Foxx Pools encourages customers to confirm the number is stated in MIL before comparing options.
Ordering locally also changes the risk profile. Foxx Pools custom-measures inground liners to the actual pool, guarantees the fit, and provides the warranty and aftercare that usually disappear when the purchase is reduced to a catalog line item. That matters even more on older pools and custom shapes.
If you are trying to narrow the field, start with the overall look you want in the yard. Do you want the waterline to read crisp and defined, or do you want the pattern to disappear into the water? Once that is clear, thickness, pattern family, and provider choice become much easier to sort through.
Foxx Pools carries liners from GLI and Findlay and can walk you through the options in the Highland showroom. That conversation is usually the fastest way to move from “there are too many choices” to a liner you actually feel good ordering.