We tackled this covered verandah renovation as one of the first jobs after moving in. The area is huge and has such a lovely outlook – so the potential was endless. However, the ceiling was covered in mould, the eaves were asbestos and the colour scheme was just awful. So these were the areas we would need to work on.
This is what the verandah looked like when we bought the house….
This is what the verandah looks like after our efforts!
We got Jim’s Asbestos Removal in to remove the asbestos from the eaves. We looked at doing it ourselves, but with so many rules and regulations to adhere to, it was actually cheaper (and easier) to get the professionals in.
The asbestos has been removed
Once the asbestos had been removed, it left the timber trusses exposed. We we didn’t like that, but we couldn’t figure out an easy way to match the rest of the ceiling so decided to cover the gap with pine ceiling boards from Bunnings. We painted the boards with Feast Watson liming white. That was a back breaking job for the Ideas member of the team!
Putting up the pine ceiling boards
I think if painting the boards was back breaking, putting them up was even more so! Thankfully the Skilled one did that job! Of course it was the perfect opportunity to puchase a nail gun!
We cleaned the ceiling mould with a combination of mould killer, elbow grease and a high pressure washer! Thankfully the weather was warm and it had a welcome cooling effect! Next is was time to paint the walls and bring some character to the space!
We tried a number of different greys and eventually settled on Malay Grey by Dulux for the walls and black for the windows. We thought the grey and black would be a lovely contrast to the white of the ceiling. Even though it is our plan to remove all the weird wooden windows and replace them with conventional aluminium windows, we decided to paint the window frames. It didn’t cost much or take too long and I just couldn’t cope with that awful colour!
As you can see from the photos, the exterior of the house is a very strange ridged concrete block. What a mission that was to paint! It sucked up paint and paint brushes alike! Next time I think I will hire a spray gun!
Almost finished …
We love the end result. It is exactly what we hoped for and while it’s not finished completely it is a much more useful space than it was. We still have to put up some wooden retaining panels along the back and remove the fencing.
To reflect the bush onto the verandah, we hung a couple of mirrors on the walls instead of pictures.
The verandah was big enough to split it into seating and dining areas.
The black fans will be very useful in the summer when the temperature is 44 degrees!
I bought a few leng’hts of white cloth from Spotlight to cover the couches – it didn’t cost much, tied the colour scheme in and will make it easy to keep the furniture in good nick.
The rain comes in a bit, but it just falls through the decking and dries pretty quickly.
Hope you found a few interesting ideas in this covered verandah renovation, if you would like to see some of the other areas of this property that we have been working on please check them out here.