Quick and Simple Garage Door Update

Give your garage a quick spruce up for $20.

With all this nice weather up here in Massachusetts in February, I’ve been getting spring fever pretty bad. I figured the rest of you might feel the same way, so I thought I’d help you scratch your “all things outdoors” itch! 🙂

I had been wanting to update the look of our house on the outside, even though our curb appeal doesn’t matter because our house can’t be seen from the road. I’m terrible at gardening, so beyond pulling weeds, I had no idea how to work on that. And I didn’t want to tackle painting the doors and garage doors, so I settled on something smaller but no less delightful.

The pictures I have are not great, but you’ll get the idea.  This is the way our garage looked:

It’s not bad, but I just wasn’t loving the mix of black light fixtures, silver garage door hardware, white trim on the front door, yellow trim on the side door (you can just see it peeking out from behind that tree), and a brass doorknob on the human-sized garage door (which you can’t make out in this picture). There was just too much going on.

So I busted out the Rustoleum Oil Rubbed Bronze, which I always keep multiple cans of in the house. Gotta be ready if inspiration strikes. You can get it at Walmart for under $6.

Rustoleum Oil Rubbed Bronze spray paint. Always keep a can of this handy.

I used a magazine from the recycling bin and taped it up oh-so-technically around the hardware. I forgot to take pictures, but I recreated it for you. To go around the circular part, I just used tons of tiny pieces of tape. Make sure you use whole pieces of paper to cover for over-spray around the hardware.

Cover enough around the hardware to catch the overspray

Don’t forget about the little handle on the bottom of the door, if you have one. And also, tape down the outer edges of the papers—sometimes the air from the spray paint can make the paper flutter around and fold in on itself, which is not good when you have spray paint flying!

After those were done, I fastened some new decorative garage door hardware that I picked up at Home Depot for $15 to the door. You need your power drill and the proper bit to drill through metal, a pencil to mark where the holes should be, and a level. I followed the directions and got one door finished in about 20 minutes. The nice thing is I didn’t even have to get on a ladder! The little 3-step stepstool worked perfectly.

Left side after, right side before

And here it is with both doors done! The update is small, but it makes a big difference. And it makes me feel just a smidge saner. 🙂 It’s an update I appreciate every day when I drive up my driveway, so for that reason, it’s one of my favorite quick updates. Now just have to fix that burnt out lightbulb…