Tips for Transforming a Garage Door into a Faux Carriage Door

If your garage door looks boring and drab, you may be able to improve its appearance without having to replace it. Doing this will take a little bit of work, creativity, and hardware, but it's something almost anyone can do. You can actually transform a plain white garage door into a door that resembles a carriage garage door. Carriage garage doors are beautiful, unique, and trendy, and you can complete this project by following these steps.

Decide on a Pattern

Carriage garage doors have several unique traits, yet there are many different designs to choose from. Here are some of the features they can have, but you do not have to choose all of these:

  • Windows—Most carriage doors have windows. The windows might be alone the top of the door, or there might be several in the center.
  • The way the doors open—A key characteristic of a carriage door is the way it opens. Unlike a traditional garage door that rolls up and down, a carriage door is actually two doors. These doors meet in the center and open up just like regular doors. Because of this, they typically have handles in the center of the door to use to open it up.
  • Material—Some carriage doors are made of wood, while others are made of vinyl or steel.

Keep in mind, this project will not transform your door into an actual carriage door. It will simply look like one, which means it is called a faux carriage garage door. As you decide on a pattern, you may want to view pictures of carriage doors to get some ideas. Once you have it narrowed down, you can begin the process of transforming your door into a faux carriage door.

Complete the Work

Once you know how you want it to look, follow these tips to achieve your goal:

1. Create the Windows

If you decide to make windows on the door, the windows you make will actually be painted on. To begin, you should measure and mark where you want them to be. You can then apply painters tape in the form of squares to create the places where you will paint the windows.

If you'd like the windows to look like they have slats, make squares out of tape, and then run a piece of tape up and down through the squares, and run a piece left and right. You can then paint the entire squares. After painting them, you can remove all the tape, and it will look like you have windows with slats in them. You should choose an exterior type of paint for this, and you can select any color you'd like, but black is popular for this purpose.

2. Paint the Door

If you would like your door to look like wood, you could achieve this by staining the door with any type of exterior wood stain. If you are going to do this, make sure you complete this step before adding the painted windows to the door.

You can stain the door just like you would stain any other type of material. Just purchase stain and rub it on with dry cloths. Be sure to let it dry completely before moving on.

3. Add the Right Hardware

The final step in this project is adding the right hardware. While carriage doors do not need a lot of hardware, they do need several things. The first thing is handles, and you can purchase these at any home improvement store. The handles should run vertically in the center of the door, and you can find out where to put them by finding the center of the door. Once you find the center, space the handles out one or two inches in each direction of the center.

In addition to handles, you can add other types of decorative hardware to the door. After you purchase and install the hardware, you will have a garage door that looks just like a carriage door.

This is a great way to turn an ordinary garage door into one that looks appealing and beautiful. To learn about garage doors, repairs, and ways to decorate them, click to read more.


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