John Leeke wrote:

"My mother still uses the original awnings installed on her house
when it was built 50 years ago in Lincoln, Nebraska. I was just talking on
the phone with her and asked how the same awnings could have lasted this
long and why she was still using them. ..."

Your great story about the awnings reminded me about the canvas roller blind
awnings we had on my childhood home.  They lasted about 15 years from
memory.  Mum and Dad made them soon after they bought the house - the house
faced west and had large windows in the three main rooms along the street
frontage.  Lengths of canvas with a length of round timber at the base, cord
through pulleys to roll the awnings up and down.

The awnings stayed down for much of the summer, but the mad dash to roll
them up when the summer southwesterly changes blew in became my chore after
I was 12 or 13.  Was interesting with the lounge room window because of the
cactus growing in the rock garden out the front!

However, the awnings also stayed up all winter - was a major exercise hosing
out the spiders each spring when we rolled them down for the first time ...
especially the redbacks (which are poisonous).

Eventually, I think the sun killed them.  Given that we get a smidgin more
ultraviolet radiation in southern Australia than you get up there in
Nebraska, I suspect that our 15 years probably equates to about 25-30 years
in Nebraska ... but I am seriously impressed with 50 years service life for
canvas awnings.

Just realised that we never waterproofed them either.  Didn't know that
trick!  Guess that's the difference between sailors in landlocked Nebraska
and landlubbers in a coastal city!

Cheers

david