The back verandah

On a hot summer's day the place to be is on a cool, shady verandah that catches the lightest of breezes, feet up, sitting back and sipping on a long cool drink.   No country house would be complete without the classic verandah.

Being a decked verandah destined for a life of almost constant shade, we chose cypress for the joists and yellow balou for the decking, both have good external durability.  Most people go for the reddish-brown hardwoods like kwila for decking, which when new and regularly oiled, looks great.  However, for low maintenance we decided to paint the deck with a good quality water based decking paint with an anti-mould additive, so for us the natural timber colour was not important. 

As was the case with the sub-floor bearers, the verandah joist hangers were nailed to the laminated bearers before the latter were located and bolted to the steel piers.

All joists were painted on the ends before being assembled into the metal joist hangers, and once nailed in position, they were fully painted.  The decking timber was also pre-painted on the bottom and sides before being nailed down.  It is a lot easier to paint the timber before it is assembled and erected, and then to touch up later.  Pre-painting timber joints also helps prevent wet rot.

Laying the decking boards required a lot of thought and diligence; keeping the boards running parallel with the correct spacing, painting all the ends at each butted joint, pre-drilling the nail holes to prevent splitting, making sure the nails were kept in a straight line and the nail heads were flush or slightly high to prevent water being held in the nail recess.

After an all-round trim and a light sand, the whole deck was given a good coat of decking paint.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

VERANDAH JOISTS (Viewed CW)
Why lift when sliding is easier...
Pre-painting the ends and tops...
Dropping them in one at a time...
Final coat before the deck is nailed...

 

 

 

 

 

 

HIT THE DECK (Viewed CW)
Pre-painting the bottoms and sides...
Planning the joins and nailing off...
Docking the ends square and to length...
Sitting down on the job...
Rollin', rollin', rollin'...