Last time we talked about ways to make your garage door stand out. We had lots of great tips on how to accessorize, and to use color and lighting to your advantage, all to make your garage door more visible to anyone who looks at your home. Not all of us want our garage doors to stand out though. Maybe it’s dented, not your style, or just plain ugly. Unfortunately, a great way for your garage door to stand out is for it to be sticking out like a sore thumb. So how do you make your garage door blend into your home more? Well, surprisingly we use some of the same tactics that we suggested to make your door stand out.
The first thing you should do is to stand way back away from the house to take in what the garage door looks like from afar. Take notes on what the biggest parts of the door that stick out. Once you have a list of what needs to be worked on taken care of, you’ll be able to figure out what to start on first.
I always recommend starting with the smaller things to take care of first. They are often the easiest to achieve! I always get more motivated after I get a few to do’s under my belt so starting with the smaller items on my lists helps to get me moving on the project as a whole.
If you are like many people, one of your list items was probably that the door as a whole looks old and faded. Perhaps the paint is peeling or in bad condition, and needs refreshment. In our discussion of how to make your garage door stand out, I suggested painting your door with a color that draws the eye to the door. Obviously, we want to draw the eye away from the garage door with paint. The easist way to do this is to paint the garage area just like the rest of the house. If you have a garage door that is stark white when your house is a darker color, the eye is going to be drawn to the brightest part of the house. So, paint the door the color of the rest of your home, and don’t forget to paint the trim around the door. You want the garage area to look the same as the rest of your house, so making sure that all the paint matches, even the trim is a very important part of this.
Getting the color to match across the whole front of your house is going to help the garage door to blend in so much more, and so will making any necessary repairs. If your garage door has a hugely dented panel, see about getting it replaced! We do free in person estimates, and can get your garage door panels measured for replacement in no time. Getting damaged panels replaced or fixed is important in getting your door to blend in because the damage isn’t going to be sticking out when someone looks at the front of your home. Think about when you have a tidy living room, but there is one long dirty sock in the middle of the floor. I don’t know about you, but that dirty sock is the first thing my eye is drawn to when I look into my tidy living room. Getting rid of the proverbial dirty sock of your garage door will be hugely beneficial to getting the door to blend in. Plus, it makes your whole door more structurally sound which in turn helps the door to last for much longer than it would with a damaged panel.
Speaking of panels, the top panel or two of many garage doors is often dedicated to windows. IF the windows of your garage door are damaged, dingy or just don’t match the rest of your house, you may want to think about getting the windows changed out in your door. Many Clopay Classic collection doors have window inserts that simply snap in and out. If your garage door has window insert designs like this, take a look at the Clopay website to see what the options for windows are. You may find some windows that better match the ones in your home. Having windows that match the rest of the house’s windows makes it so that the garage door has a congruent design with the rest of your home’s face.
Something that I can’t ignore about making your garage door blend in is that you need to create distractions. There is room for lots of creativity here. You can do a lot of stuff to the front of your home and property to draw the eye away from the garage. A few things I suggest are an update of the landscape, with some shrubs or large planters that are interesting to look at, people won’t even be paying attention to your door. You can make this as easy or complicated as you want, you can totally revamp your landscape, or you can get some cute lawn ornaments and a hanging basket or two.
Use color to your advantage by adding some colorful flowers or shrubs into your landscape, or by painting your front door a bright color. Painting your front door a bright, contrasting color is really trendy right now. It is an easy, cheap way of adding lots of personality to the front of your home, and drawing attention to the front door instead of the garage door.
Just by adding a fresh coat of paint, switching out the design of your door a little bit, and doing a little bit of magic to draw the eye away from the garage door area, you can make your door blend seamlessly in with the rest of your home.