Adding a verandah or patio area to your house can completely transform your home. But how do you decide which design to choose?

It’s true to say that you may be limited in some way depending on the size of your property and the way it is designed, but for the most part you will have plenty of choice in the final structure and how it looks.

Most people assume that they can only have one structure and they need to decide between them, but this isn’t necessarily the case. For example the Heritage design can equally well be used for a carport as it can for a covered entertaining area outside. So if you have the room, why not get a carport added to the side of your home and a separate verandah added to the rear?

This can give you an extremely versatile space to use. While the carport will obviously be used to park your car (or cars, depending on the size) in for most of the time, if you decide to hold a party or celebration of some kind you can park your vehicle on the street and then use the carport for part of the celebration as well.

A home pergola is another great example of how to utilise one area of your home in a more cosy and private way. Let’s suppose you have room at the side of your house as well as at the rear. You could have a small pergola added to the side to give you a private area for relaxing in on your own – perhaps potting some plants, reading a book, or simply laying back on a sun lounger and enjoying a few stolen moments of peace and quiet.

With this taken care of you can then add a much larger structure to the rear of your house which can be used by the whole family. This type of verandah or patio area would provide an area to socialise and to relax and perhaps have parties too – so you will always be able to use it in a number of ways.

And then when everyone else has gone home and you have your house back to yourself again, you can sneak round to your beloved pergola and sit back and enjoy a nightcap in privacy. What better way to make good use of the exterior of your home?

So you can see, combining designs when you are thinking of adding structures like this to your house can be an excellent idea. Not only can it give you the option of creating more than one area to enjoy for different reasons, it can also provide you with extra outdoors space that you probably wouldn’t use as much otherwise. Just think of that small space down the side of your house. Would you use that more often if you turned it into a small pergola? Of course you would.

So think about your space carefully when you are deciding which structure to add. It might be a lot more versatile than you think.