The Smart Way to Shade a Brick House

Take a look at the 'before' photo of Pat’s patio. It is a very familiar sight for anyone in a modern home: a set of wide sliding doors opening directly onto a bare concrete slab.

While it looks clean, in practice, it usually means the afternoon sun bounces off the concrete, sending heat and glare straight into the living room. Pat needed shade, but attaching a heavy structure to a brick house comes with complications. You have to drill into the masonry, work around the downpipes, and figure out how to navigate the existing eaves.

Pat bypassed all of those headaches with a very clever workaround: a dark grey, 5 x 2 metre freestanding Baltic louvre roof.

Why this specific layout works so well

Instead of building a massive square structure that dominates the yard, this narrow 5x2m frame acts like a deep, heavy-duty awning. It stretches across the entire width of the glass doors to provide essential shade, but only steps out two metres onto the slab.

The smartest part of the setup is how it mounts. It looks like it is attached to the home, but the four posts actually just sit squarely on the concrete patio. It tucks right up against the brickwork without requiring a single bolt in the wall.

Pat kept the operation just as simple. By opting for a manual roof, there was no need to call an electrician or run wiring through the brick cavity. A discreet hand crank hangs from the corner, letting him close the louvres to block the midday heat or open them up to let the evening breeze through.

It is a low-fuss, highly practical fix that completely changes the temperature of the patio and the living room inside.

Dealing with a similar layout? If you have a modern brick build with a hot concrete patio, you don't necessarily need a complicated, wall-mounted extension.

Send us a photo of your back doors. We can show you how a narrow, freestanding frame can give you the shade you need without the construction headaches.