Faux Carriage Garage Door - Cheap DIY

Wow. I haven't blogged since March......sorry about that. Anyhow, I'm back to post about my "new" garage door! The front of our home has been a perplexing thing to me since we bought the house 7 1/2 years ago. I love everything about my home EXCEPT for the huge garage door that overtakes the whole front and is the first thing you see when you pull into the driveway or drive down the street. I thought of painting it a different color, I toyed with the idea of making it look like wood with this faux paint/stain treatment I had seen in various places, all the while knowing none of it would turn out the way I really wanted it to. Then, I happened upon some pictures somewhere on the internet while strolling around. Someone had put some "carriage" garage door hardware on their door and had painted fake windows using gloss black spray paint. Sppppprrraaaaaaaaaayyy paaaaaaainttt.........................love it! Right up my alley, indeed.

Here is the "before" picture of my house and the gargantuan garage door. Nothing but garage, huh?

Okay, so spray paint can't shrink the size of the door, but it sure made it nicer on the eyes, in my opinion. Here is the "after".

Since I hadn't thought about the fact that I might blog on this - - expecially seeing as how I hadn't blogged in months on end, I failed to take step by step pics. Anyway, here is what I/we did:

1. Caught husband gone (I like to do my thinkin' and cipherin' alone and independently until I come up with a plan I know will work) and went to the back corner of the backyard to find a reasonably straight fence board leftover from the fence around the perimeter of the yard. Eyeballed it to make sure it would be long enough to get four "hinges", two for each side.
2. Cut a template for the hinges from a dog food box (that's two things saved from the trash - - box and old fence board). I just cut one side from the box, folded it in half and went to cuttin' with the scissors. Here's what came out:

3. Traced four hinges onto the board with an ink pen and commenced to cutting, using a jigsaw. I used some spring clamps to secure the board to my work table while cutting. 

4. Sanded the rough edges and spray painted! Hubby is involved by this point, and thinks the "hardware" I created looks really nice. I think he *may* have doubted the project originally. Please note that there are many, many hardware kits available at any major home improvement store or online, but I didn't want to pay good money for one if I didn't have to. As a matter of fact, there is still a kit in my cart on Amazon waiting to be removed. It was only like $20, but making my own was very satisfying and CHEAP!!!

Alright, that's the hinges, but what about the handles? I had some leftover cabinet door handles from our recent camper re-do, so I used those. However......they didn't look substantial enough on their own, so I cut a couple of rectangular sections from the fence board and mounted the handles to them prior to spray painting.

What about the windows? I used some good old blue painter's tape to mask off the top row of rectangles, along with windowpanes. Again, I didn't take any pictures during the process, but I got my idea for the whole project from HERE at House to Home Blog. This is an "in progress" photo of THEIR house, but is exactly how I did mine:

To prevent overspray, I cut up plastic grocery bags and taped them around the "windows" prior to painting. I didn't remove the tape and bags until the next morning to make sure it was all dry.

Here is my house again, and a closer look at our handiwork:

I just noticed another DIY project on the "after" picture that wasn't in the "before" picture from several months earlier: shutters. These were also cut from leftover fence panels and painted barn red with leftover paint from a neighbor. Cheap and free are great!!!

God bless you and have a fun and frugal week, from our house to yours!