Home design involves so many aspects and includes the inside and outside of your home. We know how important it is to not only love the functionality and layout of your home but always love the way it looks. While the garage doors are often overlooked by some homeowners, this isn’t always the case. Garage doors can really add a lot to the overall look and feel of your home. Custom garage doors are ideal when you have a design in mind and even if you don’t, knowing that you want unique looking doors to fit the uniqueness of your home is the first step. Maybe you have seen cool looking doors on another house and want something similar to it, but maybe not exactly, or maybe you do want those exact ones but aren’t sure how to get them on your home. If that’s the case you don’t have to figure it out on your own, the professionals at Advanced Door can help guide you through the process and decisions involved with custom made doors.
We Start With Materials
The first step in getting started with custom garage doors is to decide on what kind of materials you want the doors to be made from. This decision is often based on personal preference, which would match the home the best, or which one fits the vision you have for your home overall. Vinyl, wood, and composite are among the most common materials garage doors are made from.
- Vinyl- These doors are constructed with a precision-milled cellular vinyl exterior with insulates, double-sides- steel frame on the back.
- Wood- Woods doors are crafted from premium woods such as cedar, fir, and mahogany. They usually include a plywood frame.
- Composite- These doors feature usually a urethane material that is applied to a double-sided, insulated steel frame.
Deciding on materials can be a difficult decision and should not be considered lightly. Hiring a professional for their advice can help you decide which one is right for you and your home.
Finding a Door Style
After you have decided on the type of materials you want your garage doors to be made of, the next step is deciding what kind of style you want the doors to have. There are a number of different styles to choose from so you can match the feel of your home. It’s important to make sure your home feels like home to you and that includes all aspects, including the garage doors. Some of the most common custom garage door styles include swing, trifold, bifold, barn, traditional, and rail. While this might not seem like a lot of options at first glance, you would be surprised at how difficult this decision can be if you don’t already have a vision in mind.
Top Portion
You probably thought you were done with making decisions about the garage doors when we talked about the different styles didn’t you? Well not quite, there are a lot more choices ranging from the top portion of the door to the bottom portion of the doors. On the top, you can decide if you want the doors to be square or arched. In most cases the arched doors are just simulated arches where the square top is hidden, however there are some homes that accommodate true arch doors. With arched doors, overhead opening door mechanisms are usually not possible. You can also decide if you want to have glass on your garage doors or not. Glass can add to your home’s value and improve the curb appeal significantly. While most homeowners prefer clear glass panes for their doors, speciality glass, seeding glass, frosted glass, and glacier glass are also available options.
Depending on the style of the doors will depend on how many panels of glass can be added. There is also the question of whether you want simulated divided lites or true divided lites. Which refers to divides in the window panels.
- True divided- This is when the different areas in the window are separated with an exterior frame.
- Simulate divided- This is where the “frames” are added to the surface of the glass panes to make it appear separated when they are not.
Bottom Portion
On the bottom portion of the door, figuring out how many panels and what kinds of panels you want comes next. The number of panels you can choose from largely depends on the style of garage doors you have chosen. For example, swing doors and barn doors can have panels in multiples of two, trifold doors in multiples of three, and bifold doors multiples of four. If you aren’t completely true or having problems picuting what they would look like, most companies have pictures and samples you can look at to help you visualize. There are also different types of panels you can choose from to add to the uniqueness of your doors. For these there are straightforward design options such as flat and raised panels or you can get more detailed such as the Tongue & Groove (T&G) paneling. With these you have options for beaded, square, or V-groove panels. You can also choose the orientation of these grooves as well with the T&G paneling.
Trim boards are another feature available when designing you custom garage doors, and these are basically just another way to add details to those panels. Depending on the company of professionals you decide to go with will depend on what kinds of trim boards they have available but the most common options include: cross bucks, V-bucks, cross rails, sprung bucks, and Z-bucks. The best way to determine the differences between each of these would also be to talk to a professional.
Applying a Beautiful Finish
You’re not done designing just yet, the next step is deciding on a finish for your doors whether it is paint, stain, or faux stain paint.
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- Faux stain paint- While wooden garage doors are beautiful and can add a lot more value to your home, composite doors are often much less expensive and require less maintenance. For these doors, faux stain paint is the way to go to give your doors the look of wooden doors without dealing with the maintenance of them.
- Stain- Stain helps bring out the natural beauty of any wood and it is best applied after a test coat has been applied to a small section of the door. It’s important to make sure they look exactly how you want and testing out the color before you use it is smart.
- Paint- Paint is a very universal finish option and can be used on most garage doors regardless of if they are wood, vinyl or composite. Paint can often be matched to other areas of your house as well if that’s something you want to do.
Adding Hardware Accents
The final step of the design process is adding hardware accents to your doors. This hardware is decorative and can add curb appeal to your home easily and at an affordable price. The best way to add this hardware in an attractive way is to think about where the hardware would be if they were actually doors and not in a garage. There have been many cases where these are not always thought through and the strategy behind the hardware becomes lost and confusing.
Get Your Custom Garage Doors Built Today
If you are looking for affordable and efficient help to make and install custom garage doors for your home, Advanced Door is the way to go. Our experts know the best ways to make sure your garage doors look exactly the way you want them to and are able to get them done quickly and effectively.