veranda | Cukurbagli's Blog

My veranda faces west and while it’s nice to able to sit in the sun, it’s impossible to use that space in July and August because it’s just too hot. I’ve been thinking about having a frame with vines growing over it for a few years and yesterday the first part of the plan was completed when the frame was erected.

While they were putting it up I was a bit concerned about it. It looked a bit stark and angular but I know it will soften as soon as something is growing over it. Ramazan, a neighbour and local steel fabricator, brought all the necessary stuff and, along with his brother, started the job about 9.30. He asked me if it was too early for me, bless him he doesn’t realise the dogs have me awake at 5.30 every morning, and before that quite often. Recently Bayram’s big dog has been baying nearly all night at just about everything that moves and because I have my bedroom window open at night I’ve not been getting much sleep, I’m getting fed up with it.

When it was finished I started to paint the frame green (a vine frame is called a çardak in Turkish) but only had a small amount of paint left from a previous job. Tomorrow I’ll get some more and some thinners and gloves to keep the paint off me. I’m very messy when it comes to painting and always get it all over my hands, most of my clothes and even in my hair sometimes. This morning some of the green paint was on the side of the bath, how did that get there?

Once the painting is done there is some shading material to put over it to provide shade until the vines grow, the legs will need concrete put round them to secure it for the winter winds. The second part of the plan is to remove the wooden veranda, level the area from the house foundation to the outer limit of the frame with sand and then pave it to make a big patio with the same flat stone I’m using for the drive. The level will be about eight or nine inches lower than the veranda so it will need a step down from the house too.

My eyes are still improving and I’m so glad I had the laser surgery done it’s making a big difference to my life. I had a check-up a week after the surgery and there is a tiny bit of astigmatism left but if it doesn’t rectify itself after a month I can have it done under the guarantee.

Windy wasn’t the word for it this morning. I got up at 6.15 and took the dogs for a walk up to the end of the road and back, takes about an hour, and on the way back there was one point where we couldn’t make any headway. The wind was so strong that it stopped me and try as I might I couldn’t move forward. It was only a big gust of course and I was soon able to move again but my hat blew off twice.

Anyway we got back to the house and had breakfast after which I started a little job putting a new cutter wire into the strimmer, the plastic stuff doesn’t last five minutes with all the rocks in the garden. As I was doing it a gust of wind came and with a lot of noise lifted the shingles, roofing felt and boards off the veranda roof frame and three of the boards disappeared over the back of the roof and landed about twenty yards away. March winds eh?

The veranda roof is something that I made myself and to be honest I was quite proud of it. I wasn’t expecting it to have to withstand hurricane strength winds though and had used fixings that I thought would hold it all together. Well I was wrong. Here’s a picture of the newly complete roof in June 2007:

I was delighted and proud of it, I thought it blended well with the house and it seemed quite strong enough however this is what happened this morning:

You can see that there are a number of sheets of oriented strand board (O.S.B.) that are missing as well as the shingles and roofing felt having been peeled back. I suppose the wind got under the edge and once it started lifting there was no stopping it. Well I got some wood ordered this afternoon to repair and strengthen the construction of it and I’ll pick up some more roofing felt and a few rolls of shingle tomorrow morning. I think rolls of shingle will be better as it is easier to hold down. I’m also using 2″ screws to hold it together now and reinforcing the edges so the wind can’t lift anything.

I suppose there is always the possibility that, having made it much stronger, the whole roof will take off next time. Well we won’t have long to wait because there are some more strong winds forecast for Monday, I’m keeping my fingers crossed.