Timber Advice & Project Stories
Practical guidance and real project notes from more than a decade of building decks, pergolas and outdoor timber structures in KZN.
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Balau Wooden Sundeck Built in Kloof, Durban
Here’s a balau wooden sundeck we’ve just built on Kloof, just inland of Durban. We used a 19 x 90 balau deck board on this wooden sun deck at the client’s request. We normally use a 19 x 68 balau deck board as they are considerably less expensive per square metre than the 19 x…
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Solid Wooden Floors Installed in Saligna in Toti
Here’s a solid wooden floor we installed using saligna in Toti, South of Durban. These solid wooden floors were done in saligna boards of about 22 x 72mm wide. The width of each board is always dependent on how wide the boards originally come in at. So these boards came in at about 25mm x…
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Balau Cladding or Screening
Balau cladding or screening of brick walls is quite popular and attractive. It takes an otherwise boring brick, plaster or concrete look and transforms it into a beautiful wooden clad structure. It can of course be clad balau or any other timber, but balau being the most popular outdoor timber for cladding of brick walls.…
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Solid Wood Floors – All Brown Teak End Matched
These solid wood floors were installed in Hluhluwe in a house that was being renovated by the new owner on a farm. We used all brown teak, end matched. Most of our teak in South Africa comes from Zimbabwe and they are not allowing teak to leave the country without being machined there. So they…
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Wooden Balau Horizontal Balustrade using Deck Boards
Wooden balau balustrades can be designed and built in many different ways. One gets traditional picket style wooden balustrades, which seem to be the most popular with nice clean straight vertical lines. There are the criss cross designs and criss cross with a box in the middle. These are all very basic descriptions for these…
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Driveway Gate Clad in Balau Wood
Here’s another driveway gate that we clad in balau in Umdloti, North of Durban. In the pics you can see the old gate which we left in place while we installed the new balau timber clad driveway gate and them removed it afterwards and scrapped it. Because this gate is right on the road facing…
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Wooden Pergola Built in La Lucia, Durban
This was an interesting wooden pergola we built in Durban. Most often pergolas are built using planed all round pieces (PAR) in the traditional pergola design which is vertical posts to support the structure and horizontal purlins of varying width and thickness to cover the top. Wooden pergolas don’t really offer any functional benefit as…
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Nailing Solid Wood Floor Boards
Nailing solid wood floor boards down can be a time-consuming job if done manually. When nailing tongue and groove floor boards down, one needs to nail the nail through the tongue at 45° and counter sink it slightly so that the next floor board can be slotted in over the nail making it invisible. If…
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Wooden Sun Decks Durban – Westville
This wooden sun deck we built in Westville Durban was designed to try to maximise outdoor space. The house we built it at had very little outdoor space as it was situated on a steep plot. You can see from the pics that before we built the wooden sun deck, the garden had only a…
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Wooden Post and Rail Fencing Durban
A wooden post and rail fence is an attractive boundary to your property. Although they have large gaps between the rails and posts they can be made secure by adding weldmesh as we did in this one in Summerveld. Wooden Post and Rail fences are traditionally associated with horse farms as in their normal state…