Keeping cool(er)

Firstly, welcome, and thank you, to all my new followers and e-mail subscribers.  With blogger having changed which followers can follow and which can't, my numbers have gone up and down over the past few months and I thus can't always tell who's new in the zoo ;)   If you are a new follower (i.e. since January 2016) could I ask you to leave a comment with a link to your blog.  Google+ profile blogs aren't always visible to us plain ol' Google profilers ;)

But, back to today's posting.

First, won't you take a trip down memory lane with me...

May 2011

This was the state of our journey in May 2011 - half a house (combined lounge / dining / kitchen and bedroom all rolled into one with the temporary bathroom structure visible on the very left hand side).  There was no protection on the patio from the hot summer sun beating down.  But, RMan had an idea which was catered for when the patio was constructed - viz. the vertical wooden support poles....

December 2011

This is from summer of 2011 - the poles now support a shadecloth roof.  I always smile when I see this pic - in Franco Zeffirelli's "Romeo & Juliet" the nurse was mocked by some louts as she walked down a road - due to her "size" and the flapping clothing, the louts shouted after her "A sail!  A sail!"  Poor thing.  This shadecloth did the same whenever there was a stiff breeze - almost as though the house had aspiations to take off and head for the skies.

December 2012 - slowly becoming more homelike and less of a
 building site

Summer of 2012 the rest of the house was built, and we still had to paint the outside.  The shadecloth was still "flapping" and didn't extend yet to the small wooden patio in front of our bedroom door.

December 2013

In summer 2013, apart from a few coats of paint, not much had changed...  relative comfort makes one complacent.

The view from the cooler shaded patio out to the baking fields beyond

The shadecloth roof that was there - flappy or not - was invaluable.

May 2016

Fast forward to winter this year.  We now have an extra support poles between the main posts and have secured the shadecloth between the wooden horizontal poles and a stainless steel cable - therefore there is no more flapping.  The supporting structure now follows through past our bedroom door, but still provides no sun protection for our wooden bedroom patio doors, nor the deck.  The door and deck wood is suffering - big time!

As we tend to have plenty of barbecues in summer, and we use an LP gas braai, the wind sneaks around corners of the patio and sometimes makes it difficult to keep the flame lit - especially when it comes to our cooking Christmas turkey.  The solar oven doesn't make the turkey crisp enough, and it's too hot to use the Rosie, so the only way we can cook the turkey is on the braai.

So, as you can see in the above pic, RMan fashioned a wind break out of wattle droppers.  It took RMan ages, and weighed a ton (the wood is still green).

But it was ugly.

Ugly, Ugly, Ugly!!

I was not a happy puppy - and when the wife is not happy, the husband is notified - frequently and unceasingly...

November 2016

Until last weekend... :D

After explaining - in detail - the solution that I proposed, I finally got RMan to remove the wattle wind screen - yippee!  (he's going to repurpose it near the alpaca stables.

Improvements effected for summer comfort this year:
1 the shadecloth now extends over the wooden patio in front of the
 bedroom patio doors
2 an additional support pole was installed to prevent the shadecloth
 from wafting about like a sail
3 the sideways wind screen to protect the barbecue when it is lit

In it's place we now have the same fabric as the upper shadecloth roof (for continuity lol) - but we have it installed sideways like a curtain.

When not in use, the "curtain" is secured out of
the way.  It slides easily on Coolaroo butterfly
 clips fixed to stainless steel cable "runners" which
  are repurposed from a client's "no long required"
 cable balustrade.

Now, we can open and close it when it is required. 

That looks much better :D

Aesthecially, it is much better.  Much, much better - and the wife is a happy little puppy again :D