Sprucing up the exterior of your home can seem daunting at times. Our $100 garage door makeover is an easy DIY update that you can complete in an afternoon!
I have been waffling on posting this for a while since we’re not completely done with the exterior work/landscape for our house. But, since I’m working on the principle of progress over perfection, I wanted to share what we’ve done so far to spruce up the exterior of our home – including this easy garage door hack!
Our $100 Garage Door Makeover
The list has been long when it comes to exterior projects for our home, and honestly, since I spend more time inside our home, rather than staring at the outside, interior projects are more fun for me! But this past spring, after getting our interior livable, we started to focus on adding some character to our exterior.
In addition to a new roof, exterior doors, lawn, and painting the house (all big ticket items), I was looking for ways to add character that wouldn’t break the bank. One of the item’s on my list was updating the existing garage doors without replacing them, because…..money.
We have builder grade double garage doors from the late 80’s that are actually in pretty good shape for their age. They just needed a little refresh. Here’s our $100 garage door makeover!
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Adding a Fresh Coat Of Paint
The first thing we did was add a fresh coat of paint to the garage doors. We did this during the process of painting our house, but you could easily freshen up just the garage doors. I regret not getting a picture before we painted so you can experience the full “before & after effect” – but just imagine an 80’s baby blue color in its place!
If the paint on your garage doors is in good condition (lucky you!) consider giving them a good scrub instead. Dirt, grime, and winter weather can leave things looking dreary and neglected. It’s amazing what just some elbow grease can do!
How To Add Fake Garage Windows
And the pièce de résistance, faux garage windows. If you haven’t heard of them before, they’re magnetic tiles that you can stick on your garage door to look like custom carriage windows. While I feel like they wouldn’t fool anyone standing right next to them, they do a pretty good job from a distance for curb appeal. We’ve also had multiple people ask us if we got new garage doors. 🙂
They are simple to install, but if you’re a perfectionist like me it might take you a while to get them lined up/spaced to your liking. If you’re looking for something a bit more realistic looking, I originally wanted to use these faux windows that look like glass, but they didn’t work with our garage door measurements.
Garage Door Hardware & Lighting
In addition to the faux windows, we added some magnetic hardware to the garage doors to give them that carriage house feel. Depending on the style of your garage doors, you may want to play around with the placement. Since we have double garage doors and an odd number of panels, I ended up forgoing the magnetic handles that came with the hardware kit because I felt like the placement of them looked odd.
We also replaced the two exterior garage lights, and while it was separate from the garage door makeover itself, I feel like it helped tie everything together.
Overall, this makeover is by far the biggest bang for the buck we’ve done with this house. So little money for so much added character = winning in my book. If you’re looking for a budget friendly way to makeover your garage doors without replacing them, this is a good place to start!
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