You’ve designed and tailored the interior of your home to match your style, why would it be any different for your exterior? Your garage door should enhance your home’s curb appeal and not be a sore spot for the exterior of your home. In order to make a garage door truly fit with your home, you may want to consider a custom garage door design.
In this blog, we will highlight some reasons to replace your garage door, why customization may be the best fit for you and the different elements you can control with a customized garage door.
Benefits of a New Garage Door
When the time comes, and you are considering ways to upgrade your home, you may start with your garage door. You may need to replace your garage door because of damage or just because you are ready for an upgrade.
At first, replacing your garage door may seem like a big financial feat, but know that the more you put in upfront, the more benefits (and less hassle) you’ll receive down the road.
Increase Home Value
Replacing your garage door with a customized new door will give you the best bang for your buck, as the ROI totals up to 93.8%. In simple numbers, if you spend $1,000 on a new garage door, your home will increase in value by $938.
A customized garage door allows you to purchase specific features that will ultimately increase your home value when you are ready to sell. As we mentioned above, the more you put in initially, the more you will get in the long run.
Reduce Long-Term Maintenance Costs
Right now, you may be accumulating maintenance costs from an old and creaky garage door. Over time, these costs add up. When you upgrade your garage door, you’ll notice you will have fewer maintenance costs over time.
Think about this logic in terms of your car, if the maintenance costs are starting to become pricier than what you believe to be the value of the car, it may be time for an upgrade. The same goes for garage doors.
If you still do not want to upgrade, read our garage maintenance checklist to ensure everything is running properly.
Curb Appeal
Impress the neighbors and feel good about your home with a garage door upgrade. To maximize your curb appeal, design a custom door that matches your home’s style, so it blends well but also makes a statement.
You may also want to consider boosting your curb appeal with curbscaping, or renovating the areas around your garage door. We recommend adding pops of color, some greenery, adding a water feature, or exterior lighting.
Safety & Security
When your garage door opener starts to malfunction, you risk someone else figuring out that half the time your door will open without much effort. Especially if your garage door faces the street, you want to make sure you are well protected.
Choosing to customize your next garage door gives you the opportunity to choose specialty glass for your windows. Different types of glass protect your home by obscuring the interior of your garage. That way, when people are walking by your home, they don’t have the opportunity to peek inside.
Why Choose A Custom Garage Door
We’ve talked about the reasoning behind why you should replace your garage door, but most of those benefits are true even if you decide to purchase a standard garage door. Only a custom garage door design, however, will allow you to have the creative freedom to make it your own.
Flexibility
Just like your home, your garage door should be uniquely yours. You want to incorporate personal touches into your design. By going custom, you will get to customize a majority of the process including the material used, color, and design elements.
At Artisan, we have a wide selection of garage doors to choose from. Each with its own benefits, you will be sure to find something that fits your home. Once you select your garage style, you’ll have the opportunity to add decorative hardware, windows, and door stops.
Energy Efficient
Your garage door is the biggest opening into your home and can potentially let a lot of heat or cool air escape. Without a properly insulated garage door, you’re spending a lot more on monthly bills than you need to.
Insulating your garage door will also help regulate the temperature in your garage. Even if you aren’t constantly opening your garage door, you may still consider picking an insulated garage door. This will help your garage stay cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter.
How Your Garage Door Opens
Remember, you want a garage door that is uniquely yours, which includes how the garage door opens. Traditionally, clients choose a custom overhead garage door. However, other options include a true swing door, a slider, or a sectional roll-up.
Custom Garage Door Design Elements
Another major benefit to customizing your garage door is all the options you have. From windows and panels to decorative hardware, the choice is yours. Outlined below are all the elements that can go into your next garage door.
Garage Door Size
Typically, single door garages are 8 to 9 feet wide and 7 to 8 feet high, but are customizable to be up to 12 feet wide. Double door garages are usually between 16 and 18 feet wide and 7 to 9 feet high. These doors will look like two single doors put side-by-side.
The uniqueness of customization goes hand in hand with the uniqueness of your space. You may be looking for size requirements that are outside the ranges listed above, and that’s what we are here for. When you inquire with Artisan, your space doesn’t have to fit within any standards.
Lites
There are two different options for lites, or panes, on your garage door – simulated or true. A simulated lite is one large piece of glass with grilles that divide the glass to look like multiple windows. On the other hand, true lites make each window an individual piece of glass.
With your windows, you also have the ability to put in specialty glass, which was discussed earlier in this blog. The main advantage of specialty glass is to obscure the interior of your garage so neighbors or people walking by are not able to see in.
Artisan offers mullioned, prairie, and custom lites for you to choose from based on the style of the garage door.
Panels
When choosing your style, you’ll be able to select custom garage door panels. The number of panels you can have will be based on your custom garage door style. Panels will either be able to be installed in multiples of 2 or multiples of 3.
Trim Boards
These decorative elements enhance your custom-size garage door panels and divide your garage door to make it more visually appealing. There are many variations of trim board that you can decide from. You should base your decision on the other elements of your custom overhead garage door.
Cross Buck: “X” trim will be placed on each panel of your garage door.
V-Buck: V-Buck will have a diagonal trim on each panel. If two panels side-by-side have V-Buck trim, it will look like a “V”.
Z-Buck (A-Buck): Similar to V-Bucks, each panel will have a diagonal trim board on each panel.
Cross Rail: These decorative trim boards are parallel with the bottom of your garage door and will section out your custom-size garage door panels.
Sprung Bucks: Similar to both V-Bucks and Z-Bucks, Sprung Bucks curve within each panel of your garage door.
Garage Door Decorative Hardware
The final step of customization is deciding to add any garage door decorative hardware. As with all customization, you want to align these elements with the style of your home. Some options include strap hinges, latches, pull handles, ring pulls, and clavos.
