DIY Garage Door Makeover

We live in Texas, anything outdoors gets a beating from the sun. The garage doors are located where they get the full brunt of the sun. The previous owners of the house had already installed the wood doors, making my makeover a lot easier.

This is the before photo. We have 3 bays in our garage and all the doors are the same.

Here you can see how worn the wood is from the sun.

I always use Provincial stain by MinWax for all my wood projects. The color is rich, not too red, and not too dark of brown, perfect for a rustic style that will pull out the imperfections in the wood.

6 Iron towel rings from Hobby Lobby would create faux pulls for the center of the doors. They are $10 each but I bought them on half price week for $5 each. The SKU # is on the photo in case you would like to order your own. If you decide to try this on your own doors, just make sure you have the clearance at the top for the rings not to get caught. The iron hinges were purchased at a clearance sale for $4 each and are no longer available. However, Lowes carries similar ones.

Magnetic clavos, $10 per pack from Home depot give the look of nailhead trim without the weight. They are thick plastic. They are very realistic.

After staining and putting exterior Polyurethane on the doors and letting them dry, which took most of the time since I let them dry for 24 hours. I measured out and marked where I wanted the iron details to go. To make the magnetic clavos stick to the wood, I put in 1/2" large head screws,12" apart, and also used liquid nails around the edges of the clavos. They have not moved at all through storms and the horrible heat here. On the last door, I put the screws in and the iron works on so you can see the difference between the before and after next to each other.

The wood stain helped to give the doors some aged depth and make the imperfections stand out, which gives the rustic look I wanted.

Due to the blazing sun, it is hard to get a good photo of without a glare. I love our new doors and will definitely do this makeover again on our next house. The cost would have been much less if we only had one door to do instead of 3.

Hope your day is a blessed one!

Eden