DIY Carriage Garage Door

Ever wonder what to do to make your plain builder garage door look like one of those expensive carriage house doors? Me too. But wonder no more! Thanks to some $25 ebay hardware, a small can of black rustoleum paint and some painters tape, I now have a very cool door!

I found this idea on pinterest (of course!) and the hardware I got here: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Decorative-Garage-Door-Carriage-House-Hardware-/290560599077?pt=Garage_Doors_Openers&hash=item43a6c2e425
This wasn't a difficult or time consuming project at all, BUT you have to make sure you're careful when taping. I *thought* I had purchased the green "frog" tape at Menard's but it actually turned out to be the blue tape wrapped in a green label. How confusing right? So instead of going back to the store to exchange it, I went for it and used the blue tape. The black paint bled pretty bad, so now I have to go back over the edges with a smaller brush and some white paint. The line down the middle of the garage to make it look like two separate doors bled the worst. Ugh!!!

Here is a photo of the "during" process. There's only one coat of black gloss paint on the faux windows at this point. I did three coats.



Here is the street view of the door all finished. If you get up close, you can obviously tell the windows are painted on. But I don't care!! I think it looks so much better than it did when it was just a plain, white door!!



We have been busy cleaning and organizing the garage these past couple of weeks. The walls are all drywalled and painted. The doors on the inside are painted and we're getting ready to epoxy the floor in the next couple of weeks. Our garage has been this dark, junky place since we've lived here. Everything we didn't want inside the house just got chucked out there. We're trying to make it more of an extension of our home, so I thought the doors needed a facelift too! Stay tuned for photos of the finished garage renovation!!