Creating a veranda along the front of your garden room
It has become really popular to run a veranda along the front of a contemporary style garden room. These decked areas seem to offset a modern design and provide a welcoming entrance to the building. If you make your deck deep enough, it is a nice place to sit too.
Unlike verandas on traditional style garden rooms, a contemporary design is normally left open, with no balustrade or supporting columns.
To create the deck area you have two options. The first is to extend your floor joists beyond the front wall. Obviously, you don’t want to insulate the area where the deck is. You would run a series of noggins under the front wall to seal off your insulated floor.
One option is to extend your floor joists beyond where the front wall will sit. You will need to seal off your insulated floor area with noggins.
The second option is to create a frame for your floor the size of your garden room. You would then create a second frame for your deck area and then bolt the two frames together.
The other option is to create a frame for your floor and another for your deck, and then bolt them together.
When it comes to the canopy that so often accompanies a veranda, you will extend the roof rafters beyond the front wall. This type of roof is often called a fly-over roof. You will need to work out your rafter thickness and spacing depending on the roof size and how far it projects beyond the front wall of the building.
The contemporary look is for this canopy not to have any supporting columns, but you will have to weigh this up depending on the depth of your canopy.
If you want a canopy over your veranda you would extend the rafters beyond the front wall of the building
Remember, that if building a garden room under the 2.5m Permitted Development rule any rise in the roof height as it projects beyond the front wall needs to come in under 2.5 meters.
When it comes to the materials, you finish your deck in. Some suppliers use a thicker version of the timber they have chosen for the wall cladding. This is obviously a good option if you want the deck to blend colour / finish wise with the rest of the building. The growing trend, though, is to use a composite deck board. These boards have many benefits in that they are low maintenance, retain their colour and don’t become slippery like wood can.