Hi Guys! I have a quick and fun curb appeal project to share with you today. If you remember, we put a new roof on our house this summer and then ended up repainting the siding, beefing up the trim package and lime washing the stone on the house. I’m dying to share the finished project with you, but we are waiting on one last element… shutters. I’m pretty confident that the shutters are going to pull the whole new look together and make so much more of an impact that I don’t want to share with you until the shutters are installed.
DIY Curb Appeal Project
Today I am going to share with you a quick and fun update that I did that didn’t require a contractor, nor much of a financial investment – the best kind, right?! A few years ago I had thought about upgrading our garage doors from basic, plain paneled garage doors to carriage style doors. At that time I was quoted about $5,000 for the three doors. I was not up for that kind of an investment at the time, so I tabled the idea. Once we started these other updates to the exterior of the house I decided to revisit the idea. To my dismay, the quote of $5,000 a few years ago was now double! Yep, $10,000 for three wood-looking (not really wood though) carriage style doors. Whoa, I wasn’t prepared for that quote. Needless to say, the idea was tabled again.
Pinterest to the Rescue
I had seen pins on Pinterest where people updated their garage doors with carriage style ‘hardware’ and I had seen this hardware in my local Lowe’s. I decided I would go that route. However, I wasn’t in love with the exact size/style that was offered at Lowe’s so I decided to do a little online searching. What did I find – an option way better than the local Lowe’s option. The options at Lowe’s would have had to be screwed into the garage doors, marrying you to the style and possibly compromising the integrity of the door. THIS option, which I found on Amazon, is magnetic! Yep, magnetic! How great is that? They cost $38 a set, which includes four of the hinge pieces and the handles. In a matter of seconds I had carriage style garage doors, hurray! And they looked so good that when a friend saw them for the first time she asked “When did you get new garage doors?!” I consider that a win.
Then I took it one step further and added ‘faux’ widows to the doors. I was skeptical about this, thinking it was going to be obvious that they weren’t real and would look cheap. However, I think they look great! Again, Amazon to the rescue. THESE ‘windows’ are 4×6 black magnets. I started by putting four of them together in a top panel, but wasn’t super excited about the look and how they fit within the panel. So instead I used my Fiskars craft paper cutter and cut the squares to 4×4 3/4 inches so that I could fit six within a panel instead of four. These magnets come in packs of 32 for $33 per pack.
$10,000 for new doors or $213 for carriage door style hardware and accents? I couldn’t be happier with this $213 investment!
If you enjoyed this post you might also enjoy THIS post about updating my back patio area.
The magnets look AMAZING!!