27th October 2010: Shooting the Breeze

The verandah is a quintessential part of Australian architecture – and beloved by patriotic homeowners everywhere.

260 Wattle Glen Road, Kangaroo Ground

A place to take in the night air, catch some sun, or just relax with a book on a comfy chair, the verandah has become a key element of Australian streetscapes since they began to appear in the early 1800s in response to our hot climate.

Since their introduction in Australia in the early 1800s, verandahs have offered a place to inhale (and shoot) the breeze. Writers like Philip Drewe have praised their beauty for decades, claiming that Australians are "verandah people", and indeed these humble porches have come to symbolise a kind of nostalgic casual space for retreat.

But there is more to a verandah than a grand stone flagged portico or (on the other end of the scale) a few planks of timber. Verandahs offer not only a fetching façade and a protective shield from the weather, but also a link between the exterior and the interior domains. They were rediscovered in the 1970s and again in the 1990s by a generation who liked the idea of stepping out and sipping their tea on one.

2 Buccleugh Street Drysdale

Verandahs of today are not much different from those in the 19th century, which were constructed of tongue and groove boards or timbers like Kauri and Jarrah, and often they had a slight gradient for water runoff. When repairing a verandah, it's important to reinstate this original gradient and to keep to dark coloured, durable timbers such as jarrah. Other, perhaps more salubrious, verandahs were constructed of stone, large marble or slate tiles laid on the diagonal or tessellated geometric tiles in complex patterns, with edges dressed in bluestone, or thick bull-nosed slate. While original tiles are sometimes difficult to replace, most timber yards will supply original timber posts while replica panels of cast-iron lace panels can be cast by foundries from intact panels.

Whether your verandah is decorative Edwardian with lattice and fretwork, Interwar bungalow with terrazzo floors, or some other style of architecture, there is one thing for certain: it's far more than a place to simply kick off the shoes before you enter the house.