Garage Door Reveal

My "New" garage/side entry door. The door was painted Rust-o-leum Gloss Oil Black, a simple steel door
decoration was bought at Hobby Lobby, spraypainted white, then hung with neodymium (i.e. really strong)
magnets to the steel door. No screws, glue or hardware required! 

At long last, I have some pictures to show you of the rest of my garage redo. When I showed you my interior redo, I told you I still had some things to show you about the outside, but that the weather wasn't permitting me to get any shots in to share with you. Now, um...lets see...probably a MONTH later, I finally have some. Crazy how time can fly when you're busy!

Anyhoo, let's see those before and after shots, shall we?

Before - and Oh, so blah! Builder basic all the way.  I still plan to repaint the hanging light fixtures,
but I have to do things as time allows (i.e. when school is back in session!).

 Like my "New" garage door?

 I have to tell you, when my sister-in-law drove up the other day and exclaimed "You got a new garage door!" I couldn't have been more pleased:). Bingo! My old garage door has morphed into a set of carriage doors at a total cost of about $5.00 and some elbow grease. Can't beat that!

Up close view of the upper "hinges".

 In order to create the illusion, I did a little research on options and found I could one of three things to get the more custom look of carriage doors without actually buying them.

1. Order faux metal hinges and handles to screw onto the door,
2. Order magnetic metal faux hinges to just stick on the door,
3. Make a stencil and paint them on.

Up close shot of the lower "hinges".

 I knew Hubby would flip if I painted or screwed on "hinges and handles" to the door, so it looked like the magnetic option was for me. Then I looked at the price on Ebay. It's actually really economical, BUT still not within my budget for now. So, I started looking for another option. Surely I could find a cheaper, albeit not as realistic as the magnetic, way to get the look for now.

View of the center of the door with it's new "handles" and "crack" between the "two" carriage doors.

Enter a trip to Lowe's. I love to stroll down the aisles at my home improvement stores brainstorming. I challenge myself to come up with as many out of the box uses for everyday items as I can - all for the sake of getting the luxe look of items I want but can't afford. Truthfully, it's really more of a creative outlet and to see if I can overcome the challenge.

Up close view of the new carriage door "handles".

When I stumbled upon a roll of contact paper with a mottled black and gray appearance, it suddenly hit me. Just draw the hinges and handles on that, cut them out and stick them on! How much easier and cheaper can you get?! I came home, found some hinges and handles I liked on-line, printed out the image, blew it up on the printer, then traced them onto the contact paper and cut them out. Before applying them, I pressure washed the whole door throughly, then just stuck them on. The center where the two doors meet is just a long skinny strip cut off the edge or the roll. To create a little more of a realistic look on the handles, I took some metallic silver paint and lightly dry brushed some where the handles would curve and onto the shadow part of the handle that I made sure to cut out WITH the main part. Illusion complete! It apparently is good enough that, without really close inspection, you don't even realize it's contact paper. Hubby nearly blew a gasket when he thought I'd painted them on without talking to him first:) I giggled inwardly as I happily told him it was just contact paper that is "supposed" to peel off cleanly with a little heat from the hair dryer:) And, if there is any adhesive left, then I know a little "Goof Off" will get it, so we're all good. Eventually I want to order the magnetic pieces, but for now these look pretty good.

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