Faux Carriage Garage Door Curb Appeal

One of the fun and rewarding projects my husband and I completed was our garage door. This project added major curb appeal to our drab gray door with old-style Florida-retiree sunrise/sunset window inserts. I’ll stop describing and let the picture do that for you.

As you can see, our plastic lights were also done for and we seemingly had a dent on the door.
On top of the gray, we had an off-white trim around our home that only added to the dreariness. Like I stated previously, this is our first home and I am a full-time student; meaning, we are strapped for cash. We clearly could not buy a new door and also paint our entire house.

The First Problem: The drab gray.

The Solution: PAINT! We purchased the most pure white paint without gloss that we could find, from the Po (my affectionate nickname for the Home Depot :P ). The one we found was BEHR 1-GAL.ULTRA PURE WHITE EXTERIOR PAINT for $30.97. We also painted our off-white trim to match. The best part is that we did it all with one gallon! For price considerations, the paint brushes cost about $7.

The Second Problem: The ugly window inserts (ugly in my opinion and only because they do not go with our theme).

The Solution: Pop them out! The inserts popped right out and all that was needed was a stepladder and screwdriver.

We were then left with beautiful square windows! If you do not have windows Home Depot also sells Faux Windows for $99.

The Third Problem: That ugly “dent”.

The Solution: That “dent” was actually not a dent and was caused by a broken hinge on the door. We purchased the new one for about $5 which looked like this:

The Fourth Problem: Those ugly lights! They were original with the house (2001) and plastic. In Florida, plastic probably lasts 1/4 of the time it does elsewhere. See for yourself.

The Solution: We were really liking the pure white theme so we purchased three Hampton Bay brand, metal and glass outdoor lights at $39.97 a piece.

The Last Problem: We needed to add a little spunk to our garage door.

The Solution: We purchased a faux garage carriage door kit. Here is the link: http://www.homedepot.com/p/Crown-Bolt-Black-Traditional-Decorative-Garage-Hardware-Kit-10011/203233029

The final product:

Before and After:

Of course you do not have to go to the extent we did, but any of these changes will add some major curb appeal to your home.

Happy crafting!