A little tip when designing a veranda on your garden room

We have been talking to a lady who having just spent a month in Western Australia has decided that she wants to create a garden room with veranda at the front, reminiscent of the house she had been living in.

She sent us some photos of the house she had been staying in and asked us to suggest some garden room suppliers who built this style of garden room. The thing when looking at the photos she sent was, what a large space the veranda was – it really did create a room halfway between inside and outside.

There was plenty of space on this veranda for tables and chairs, and several people to mingle.

The thing is with verandas on garden rooms is that they don’t tend to be that big. I know I have designed them myself and have studied those currently on the market. Garden room verandas tend to be only 1m to 1.2m deep. This depth is chosen as its proportional to the main garden room space.

If you are wanting to create a veranda that is a useable space you really need to maximise the space available.

A little design tip

As a self builder you can obviously design a large veranda if thats what you want. If however you want to create a veranda space that is proportional to the main room, we have a design tip for you.

Part of the charm of a traditional veranda is the balustrade. These were originally designed for practical reasons as the veranda would be raised from the ground so it prevented anyone falling. The reality is that your garden room veranda will only be 150mm from the ground – so its not really needed.

The balustrade can really enclose a veranda and limit space you have for using it. We have modelled up a traditional garden room with a 1.2m veranda and balustrade. We have put some garden furniture on it to show the space you’d have, and how the balustrade would obscure your view when sitting down.

Some garden room designers are removing the balustrade option and as you can see from these images this creates quite a different space. By not having a balustrade you actually create a veranda that is more useable.

So our little design tip is if you are thinking about adding a veranda to your garden room consider loosing the balustrade, it will give you a more useable space in the long run. Balustrades are a fiddle to make too!